Rippling Eclipse
by Kur0Kishi
Summary: When Ash disappeared 5 years ago, his friends were distraught to say the least. When he reappears in the fifth Pokemon World Tournament, they thought they'd be happy to see him. They weren't wrong, but then they weren't really expecting such a different person either.
1. There is no Shelter from the Storm

Rippling Eclipse Chapter 1

There is no Shelter from the Storm - Instinct

Disclaimer: All Pokemon characters used belong to the Pokemon Company, a Japanese consortium between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Furthermore, all other characters used are either of my own creation and thus are not meant to resemble anyone in real life. This includes creations used from other creators with their authorization. Thank you Amethyst.

This little one shot takes place before Kalos and Pokémon X and Y, if only because I've never managed to scrounge up enough time to play the damn thing (or buy a 3DS in the first place for that matter. I'm broke. So broke.). That said, I don't consider myself a Pokémon expert either, and my knowledge of anything that happened after the Advanced Generations of the anime and Black White 2 of the game is spotty at best. This one shot was created as a result of me trawling down memory lane one day after a particular bad episode at the office, and after all the hype about Pokemon Go (Which I don't get to play because I ain't in OZ anymore) that caused me to go to the Pokémon section on , where to my horror, I realized that the average level of most (almost all) Pokémon fics on this site was…. Underwhelming.

So I decided to write a nice little one shot for fun.

Do enjoy.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

 **Soundtrack List**

Pokemon – I Believe

Pokemon – Lugia's Song

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"Dawn!"

Dawn Berlitz, a young, and extremely good looking (if she did say so herself) Coordinator, hummed gently to herself as she glanced at the person calling her name with some interest.

While that in itself was not something surprising considering she had ranked fairly highly in many of the Coordinator contests she had entered despite her young age and was something of a protégé to Wallace and his wife, Winona, the 18 year old young woman had only just arrived at this particular region of Johto, and as such had not really expected anyone to recognize her that soon.

Of course, as she watched the person who had called her name out, bob and weave her way through the crowd towards the little cafe where she had been spending most of her time lately, she immediately recognized the bright orange hair, cut in a sophisticated bob style that was all the rage recently.

Dawn smiled faintly as the Gym Leader of Cerulean city entered hearing range, "Misty, it's good to see you again."

"I'm hilariously tired." The water trainer announced bluntly, ignoring the whispers that had suddenly started up around them as she plonked herself down in the nearest chair in a very unladylike manner, causing Dawn to smile nostalgically, "Sitting on a Lapras all the way to Johto is a massive pain in the ass. Literally."

"You couldn't just take a boat?" Dawn inquired sarcastically.

Misty winced, "I **might** have procrastinated a little."

Dawn stared at her, "In other words, you got lazy. Then you forgot. And by the time you _unforgot_ , all the boats were fully booked." She summarized succinctly.

"Touché." Misty commented with a wry smile as she slouched over in her seat with exhaustion.

The prodigious water trainer had never really been one for feminine things, even after all these years although only a blind man would consider the slender and well-dressed Gym Leader anything less than graceful or feminine.

They might not have a lot of interaction during their younger years, but after... **he** had disappeared shortly after he had decided to tour the Kalos region. The members of their somewhat exclusive little travelling club had sort of made it a habit to meet up at least thrice a year, mostly to share any information they might have gotten or just to spend some time with Delia, especially Iris and Cilan who had been the last ones to see him in the flesh.

The fact that there was little to no information on the...ah... _reason_ for the founding of their exclusive little travelling club at all did nothing to stop some of them from meeting up anyway and gradually becoming fast friends.

Which was why it was not rare for visitors to the Ketchum residence to bump into various rather famous and highly skilled trainers often lounging in the hall, or in Brock's case, helping Delia cook up something interesting, and then promptly spend the rest of their visit in complete and unthinking awe in the presence of these partial celebrities.

In the months after Ash's disappearance, it had become something of a dark joke amongst his friends, one started by Brock who had began to call their little gatherings to see if anyone could figure out where Ash had gone to, as a club meeting of people who were fortunate enough to travel with a and take part in the tumultuous clown fest that Ash Ketchum called his life.

Needless to say, entry was by invite only.

"What about the Unova gang?" Dawn inquired to the slightly older woman who had just waved a waiter over so that she could order another cup of black coffee.

Misty, who was generally acknowledged as the leader of their club beside Brock due to their _seniority,_ was also the one who usually organized their club meetings, shook her head a little sadly at the thought of their two friends, "Last I heard, Delia told me they had just arrived from Pallet last night, so Delia wanted to let them rest one night at least before they came here as together."

None of them blamed Iris or Cilan, least of all Delia, for not staying with Ash and keeping him on the beaten track a little longer, but it was obvious that the many reassurances they had been given had nothing whatsoever to stop their own conscience from giving themselves a beating.

Amusingly enough, it had been Delia who had literally slapped some sense into the two of them, and reminded them that Ash would not have been happy to know that two of his friends were blaming themselves like that, and he would like it even less to know that they were putting their lives on hold to take care of an old woman like her.

As Dawn peered in to her cup, she smiled to herself. In their club, it had, surprisingly, been Delia who was the most unaffected by his disappearance, because as she had put it, her son had been going off and disappearing for long stretches of time regularly ever since he was 10 years old. If she got in a panic every time he did that, every single strand of hair on her head would have gone white by the time she was 32.

Delia knew her son was a little flaky even at the best of times, but she also had very little doubt that he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself... even if he did have to eat grass and drink rain water just to survive… mostly because he was utterly incapable of boiling even water without breaking a pot in the process.

Sometimes, Dawn wished she had the old lady's steely determination.

"What about May and Max?" Dawn questioned as she idly stirred her cup of hot coffee, her eyes drifting over the large HD screen mounted on the idyllic, vine covered wall that separated them from the rest of the restaurant's customers. The program currently showing was a re-airing of the interview with a representative from a new region's Elite 4.

Though why they decided to choose a quivering wreck of a woman more concerned with hiding behind her Cradilly rather than answering the reporter's questions, even if she was an Elite 4 member, eluded Dawn entirely.

It had been on the news pretty recently hadn't it?

She recalled reading about it in passing in some magazine during one of her trips to Hoenn. The place had apparently just ended a decade long civil war and looked like it was a complete and barren **mess** from what few pictures the reporters had gotten during the interview. Apparently they had rebuilt enough that they were now confident enough to try and inviting some fresh blood to the region as well as reconnecting to the rest of the world.

That idiot probably would have been one of the first few to jump on the boat and kick off a new episode in his life, Dawn noted to herself with a slightly nostalgic smile.

"Da… Dawn?"

Her startled eyes drifted back to Misty and she smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, I drifted off a bit there."

Misty scrutinized the younger woman, "You haven't been resting properly have you?"

"It's that obvious, huh?" The dark haired woman pouted mutinously, "There were some programs back in Celestic that I just had to finish filming before I rushed over here."

Misty merely sigh in resignation, "Just make sure you sleep early today alright?"

Dawn cheered up against instantly, "Of course."

"Anyway, as I was saying," Misty rolled her eyes at Dawn's exaggeratedly attentive expression, "May and Max are arriving later today." Her powder blue eyes twinkled, "I heard that Max is bringing a friend. A girl friend no less, who happens to come all the way from Kalos."

Dawn's eyes went wide, "A girlfriend?"

"Nope. A girl friend. The kind that still has a space between the two nouns," Misty smirked, "Though it's not going to stay for long if May has anything to say about it, irritating accent or no."

The coordinator's brows slowly rose, "May? Funny, I actually thought she'd be opposed to it."

"Look at it from her point of view. The sooner Max gets attached to someone else, the sooner she gets to go wherever she wants instead of having her little brother tag along every time she tries to go somewhere." Misty remarked dryly.

"Oh…" Dawn pouted again, "That makes sense I guess. I don't really know since I've never had siblings.

"Now I'm hurt." Dawn yelped when someone added to their conversation. She yelped even harder as that someone began ruffling her perfectly coiffed hair affectionately, "I always did think of you like my little sister. My slightly less irritating little sister that is."

A lithe form clad in a form fitting black dress slid into the free chair, her dark amber eyes sparkling with mischief through the curtain of pale yellow curls.

"Cynthia!" Dawn protested loudly, only for the older woman to wince a little.

"Why don't you yell a little louder?" She commented wryly, "It's not like we don't already have enough people staring at us."

Dawn blinked and looked around the room as discretely as she could and finally noticed that the entire place had gone silent in favour of staring at all three of them, before she buried her burning red face in her palms with a groan, "This is all your fault. You said you wanted to rest in the hotel room." Dawn grumbled accusingly.

"I got bored." Cynthia replied offhandedly before she turned to Misty and gave her fellow Pokemon league member a warm smile, "Misty, it's been a while."

The water trainer who had been simply observing the two women interact with amusement merely nodded in response, "I knew you were coming, every single Gym Leader, Elite Four and Champion was invited to the World Tournament, so of course you'd be here too, but Dawn neglected to mention to me that the two of you were coming together."

"It was a coincidence really." Cynthia admitted offhandedly, "I wasn't really planning on attending at all since I just came back from exploring the Mirage Caves and trying to understand how it could appear and reappear like that. But I bumped into Dawn back in Celestic, and when she heard I wasn't going to come, she refused to budge until I changed my mind." She glanced at the flushed girl pointedly, "Much like another younger sister of mine. So here I am."

"So that's why I didn't see your name on the roster." Misty commented as she eyed the slightly older woman, "You don't intend on telling the organizers that you're here at all, are you?"

"Not really." Cynthia sighed quietly, "To be perfectly honest with you, it's not like I haven't already done the whole Growlithe and Ponyta show for the past five World Tournaments. It's gotten to the point where I'm almost wishing someone would come along and just take the bloody title from me just so that I wouldn't keep getting all these annoying invites that I can't outright refuse every time I'm doing something."

Misty's eyebrows rose slightly, "You want to stop being the Sinnoh Champion?"

"Well not really." the pale blond woman remarked with another gusty sigh, "I love the job and everything it represents. To be the Champion is a reflection of your skill and dedication, it is a representation of your dedication to the embetterment of our world, both Human and Pokemon alike, and it is a crystallization of all my efforts in the 28 years I've been alive. What I am **not** a fan off however, is the red tape and the whole Growlithe and Ponyta routine that comes with it."

"Because all she wants to do is hide in some ruins somewhere looking at dusty books or climbing caves in the middle of Arceus knows where looking for obscure, rare Pokemon." Dawn deadpanned, "And if someone comes along that wants a battle, all the better. Because the very fact that they managed to reach whatever Arceus-forsaken corner of the world she happens to be hiding in at that moment usually means that they're going to be either pretty damn lucky, or pretty damned skilled."

"She makes a wonderful little sister, don't you think?" Cynthia murmured admiringly, "Summarizing all my words up like that for me."

"That she does." Misty agreed with a loud snort as she drained her cup of coffee, "Which brings us to the here and now. The two of you in the same place isn't exactly good for this kinda conversation, so we should probably go somewhere else no?"

The other two took one look around them, noticed the fact that the crowd had already somehow doubled in the half an hour they had been here, and the fact that most of them were already gearing up for a full blown autograph session.

They immediately agreed without hesitation.

 ******Pokemon******

"So where are we going?" Dawn questioned as the three of them walked down the boulevard lined with leafy maple trees.

"Do you mind if we went to the stadium?" Cynthia suggested, "They've already started the preliminaries to see who gets to join the Tournament and I'm kinda curious if there's any good talent this year."

Misty squinted at the darkening sky, "It looks like it's about to rain. I don't really care I suppose, as long as there's shelter."

"Preliminaries huh…" Dawn huffed quietly, "It's been a while since I've seen one of those." She admitted.

"Neither have I." Misty added quietly, "Since every single one of us, with the exception of Max, are either Gym Leaders or have already won a Competition or two, and thus have a slot reserved anyway, I tend to just come when the actual thing starts."

"And the kid tends to blast every one that fights him to shreds anyway. Which kinda defeats the purpose of cheering for hm." Dawn deadpanned.

"It probably helps when you have several Gym Leaders, two world class Co-ordinators, one of which happens to be his sister, and the Unova Champion no less, teaching you a couple of tricks before you start your journey." Misty commented with a smirk.

Cynthia blinked, "Max? As in THE Petalburg Gym Leader's son? **That** Max?"

"Yuuup." Dawn drawled, "He was a brat back then. Now despite everything, he's an even bigger brat if you can believe it or not."

"I only know him because of Norman." Cynthia admitted, "Haven't really heard anything else about him."

"I'm not really surprised," The raven haired woman commented, "When he lost to Drake in his first try at the Ever Grande Conference, he almost quit on the spot even though everyone, including his sister, was trying to tell him that making it to the Head of the Hoenn Elite Four on their first attempt was pretty damn good for a freshie. He eventually bounced back after a couple of years doing a very good Cloyster act, then decided to start over in Unova with May. He's doing pretty well if May's general cursing is anything to go by, but you don't really keep up with other regions do you?"

"Not really." Cynthia hummed to herself, "So is he strong?"

"To date, Drake has been the only person to beat him that badly if that means anything." Misty noted offhandedly, "He's also currently tipped to be the one to beat the Unova Elite Four in this year's Vertress Conference."

Dawn smiled with great satisfaction, "If he does, he gets to fight Iris. The very same person who taught him most of his tricks." She grinned evilly, "I can't wait to see her kick his ass all over the field."

"He'll probably surprise you." Misty commented lightly.

As the three of them continued walking to the stadium, Cynthia merely listened to the two of them with a slightly wistful expression, "Actually, now that I think about it. I was actually disturbing one of your club meetings wasn't I?"

"Realize it sooner, stupid sister." Dawn deadpanned to the older woman as the three of them walked down the boulevard, "How are you the Sinnoh Champion when you're **this** absent minded?"

"Ouch." Cynthia agreed blandly, "So any change on the situation?" She inquired curiously.

"Not really." Misty remarked with a heavy sigh, "He's still missing. Has been missing for the past five years. Will probably be continue to be missing for the near future too."

"Cheer up," Cynthia replied sympathetically, "I've talked to him enough times to know that he can take care of himself." She paused, "Or rather, Pikachu will take care of him."

"Sounds about right." Misty giggled quietly.

"Besides, just because there hasn't been any news doesn't mean that he's not around." Cynthia chirped encouragingly, "He might even be wondering about this very town right now, completely lost and starving."

"Yeah. That sounds totally like As-Ah!" Dawn yelped as she walked into a broad shouldered man who had been standing on the path with a slightly dazed expression.

Or at least she thought he was young. She couldn't really tell from her spot on the curb as she rubbed her sore behind.

The fact that the guy, covered entirely in a thick and raggedy travelling cloak that concealed his frame was also sporting a massive spiky beard, covering everything but his eyes and his eyebrows and looked like it hadn't been washed in ages didn't really help.

The man blinked his reddish brown eyes a little blearily before he gasped and hurriedly bend down, "I'm so sorry." He muttered apologetically in a very gruff and coarse voice as if it hadn't been used in a while, while he helped her get up, "I was just so hungry I sort of spaced out…." The man blinked as he finally got a good look at the svelte woman, " _Dawn_?"

The aforementioned woman blinked perplexedly as she moved a couple of steps back to distance herself a little from the somewhat pungent smelling man, "Do… I know you?"

The man continued to stare at her.

" **Holy shit."**

He shifted slightly to stare at Misty.

" **Holy. Shit."**

Then he stared at Cynthia.

Then he stared some more.

"Marry me please?"

Misty and Dawn stared at him stupidly while Cynthia took a surprised step back as she pointed herself, "... Me?"

"Yeah?"

"What."

Misty frowned before she suddenly stepped forward much to Cynthia and Dawn's confusion.

Their confusion only increased as Misty's stare slowly intensified until she suddenly turned a remarkable shade of angry red before the passionate red head grabbed his beard and very roughly yanked the yelping man down to eye level with an angry hiss that vaguely reminded Cynthia of a rampaging Gyarados she had fought once before.

" **Ash Ketchum."**

The man whimpered, "Uhm… Hi Misty?"

" **You have some DAMNED good explaining to do before I yank your beard out one hair at a time."**

Dawn and Cynthia stared blankly.

"What?"

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"So good. Oooh… So, sooo good."

Cynthia very carefully sat as far as she could from the young man making the disturbing grunting as he liberally shovelled everything on the table into his gaping maw, making sure not to make it look like she was incredibly disgusted by his eating habits. She shouldn't have bothered really, Misty had already made it very clear she disapproved and Dawn was sitting on the other side of the room as it was, her sensitive nose made her eyes water just from being in the same room as the man who was supposedly their old friend.

"Sorry bou' that." The man mumbled through an entire mouthful of pasta, "I din't really get a chance to eat or clean up since I wander'd into town yesterday."

"I can tell. If not by the fact that you're currently spraying everyone here with a good chunk with your lunch every time you talk, then by the fact that Dawn can't even sit in the same room as you without breathing." Misty noted sarcastically, one heeled foot tapping impatiently as she waited for him to finish."

Ash grinned apologetically, simultaneously inhaling everything on the table at the same time.

"So you've at least been back in civilization for a day now at least." Misty concluded ferociously, "Why haven't you **at least** contacted **your mother**?"

"To be fair, it's not like I didn't try the moment I entered town." The bearded man rummaged around in his pocket before placing a cracked and weathered watch on the table, "The Nav broke down on me ages ago. Now I just carry it as a memento. Same with the Pokedex." Ash said gruffly beore he swallowed an entire bowl of soup in one go, "Tried to see if Nurse Joy would let me use the one at the Pokemon centre even without any identification on me, but she just thought I was just someone trying to bum off her place." He placed heavily cracked and damaged Pokedex beside the PokeNav, its red shell was just _barely_ visible through the dirt and grime.

"Suffice to say, I didn't really have enough currency to use a public phone either."

Misty buried her face in her palms, "Oh Arceus…. Hurry up and finish your food. You can use my Nav to call her once you're done."

"No, no. I can do it now." The tall man said, his great big bush of a beard quivering with what Cynthia assumed was a great grin, completely at odds at way his voice cracked and sounded remarkably like two Tyranitars grinding on each other.

He hurriedly wiped down his face with the offered napkin before gingerly accepting the PokeNav from his old friend, making sure to do with his clean hand.

With almost shaking hands, he waited for the Nav to finish dialling when a face he hadn't seen in five years popped upon the screen.

"Hey, Misty." The woman promptly chirped, "Is there something wrong, honey? You called just this mor…." The brown haired woman with the friendly face stared at the face plastered on her screen in confusion.

Unless Misty had suddenly grown a beard, this person certainly wasn't her one of her son's closest friends.

"Hey mom. It's been a while."

Her mouth clicked shut as she stared at the shaking screen.

Just barely, she could see something shining in the man's familiar reddish brown eyes.

"Ash?"

The great beard attached to her supposed son's face rustled as if he was grinning widely.

"The one and only."

The two of them stared silently at each other, upper lips wobbling, "Are you… are you with Misty right now?"

"Yeah. I'm with her at…." The tall man blinked before he looked up to squint at Misty, "Exactly where are we again?"

As one, every female in the room, including the one on the screen, face palmed.

Misty snatched the PokeNav out of his fingers with a hiss before smiling kindly at the quivering woman, "Hey, Mrs. Ketchum. We're still at the Johto PWT. Don't worry, I won't let the idiot take even one step out of Silver town before you arrive."

As Ash took back the PokeNav, he could only smile stupidly at the screen.

"You **promise** you won't leave right?" Delia quavered, showing that she hadn't been as composed as she had looked the entire time.

Ash merely shook his head vigorously, "Not for a very long time to come." He croaked.

As the call ended, he leaned back into his chair with his eyes closed and his shoulders sagged as if a great burden had been lifted from him.

"Hey," Dawn suddenly thought of something in the silence, "Where's Pikachu? I haven't seen him since I bumped into you."

Ash snorted as he reached over to the cloak and pulled it back to reveal a terribly worn backpack. Unzipping it, he reached into it and pulled out a lump of yellow fur before dropping it on the table with a loud thud.

Said lump of yellow, motionless fur with black stripes and a zig zag shaped tail attached just lay there on its face.

"Lazy bastard hasn't woken up since this morning."

Dawn cringed, "You sure he's not dead?"

Ash merely grinned as he nudged Pikachu with one large finger, rolling the little yellow rat onto its back where it began snoring happily, "Very sure. He stuffed himself on some Pecha berries in the forest this morning, so I don't expect him to wake up anytime soon."

Ash grunted as he ran one hand along Pikachu's bulging tummy, "So I'm in Silvertown huh. Guess I wandered into the right town somehow. Lucky me."

He leaned a little to the left so that he could squint out at the sun, "Hmmm… about time too."

While the women were watching in stunned silence, the dark haired man got up and began to happily gathered up all the leftovers and wrapping them all up in the tablecloth.

"Wait, wait, wait. Where the hell do you think **you're** going?" Misty stood up indignantly, "You still haven't answered a **single** question."

"Can that wait until later?" Ash questioned with an innocent tilt of the head, "I'm going to be late as it is."

"Late for **what?!"**

"For the match obviously." The significantly taller man replied cheerfully, "Why else would I be here?"

 ******Pokemon******

"Mr. Ash Ketchum, are you ready?"

The dark haired man looked at the referee blankly for a moment, "Oh. Oh! Yes, yes. I just have to find the right… Ah there he is." Grinning triumphantly, he finally pulled out a worn and damaged Pokeball from his backpack.

"Sorry," Ash apologized shamelessly, "I tend to lose track of my balls a lot."

The referee stared at him before sighing.

 **[Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready for today's fifth Preliminary Match?]**

At the ensuing approving thunderclap of applause, the two commentators grinned.

 **[Today's Match is one Ash Ketchum against a regular competitor in the global Pokemon League. So far, Ritchie has made his name well known from placing in the Top 8 in almost every single Conference he has participated in. It certainly looks like Contender Ash has his work cut out for him today hmmm?]**

There was another roar of applause as Ritchie's fan made their approval known.

"So it's Ash Ketchum hmm?"

The younger one glanced at his senior, "What's up, Cotton?" He asked, making sure to keep the mike away.

"Nothing much…. The name is familiar, but I can't really place where I heard it from."

"Well, there's absolutely no records on this guy. He's probably just another one who got lucky and received an invite." Pepper remarked cheerfully.

"I suppose so…." Cotton replied doubtfully.

Back on the field, the referee sighed.

Back in his day, a pokemon match was just him and his colleagues and the two trainers. Nowadays, all the kids needed to have all the fancy smancy new spangled technology as well as those two commentators stating the obvious every few seconds.

He missed the old days.

Still, he had a job to do, and he intended to do it well, air headed commentators or not.

"Are the two Contenders ready for the Preliminary matches?" the old man dressed impeccably in a referee's suit called out loudly.

On the opposite side of the field, a red haired man with a cap on his head stared disbelievingly at Ash.

"Ash, is that really you? I mean I knew I was supposed to fight an Ash Ketchum today, but I didn't think it'd be you."

"Uhm…. yeah?"

He squinted at the other guy.

"Sorry… but who're you again?"

"I'm Ritchie dammit!"

"Oh! Of course I remember you!"

The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

"You don't remember at all do you?" Ritchie deadpanned.

"Not really. No." Ash admitted with an embarrassed smile.

"We fought at the Indigo Plateau dude!"

"In my defence, that was ten years ago. But now that you mention it…. You used to have a Pikachu didn't you?"

"Yeah, Sparky." Ritchie grinned widely, "He's not here today, though it would have been interesting to see him go up against your Pikachu again."

Ash grinned enthusiastically, "Should I take that as another challenge after this one?"

"Of course." Ritchie replied good-naturedly.

"Ahem…" The referee coughed, "If the two of you are done…?" He trailed off with a pointed glare that had the two younger man chuckling in embarrassment, and the audience, who could hear their every word broadcast on the speakers loud and clear, giggled loudly.

"This will be a regular 6 on 6 elimination Match. No restorative items are allowed during battle and no switching is allowed until a match is over. Are we clear?"

Taking a far more serious mein, Ritchie nodded, all his focus on Ash who was idly scratching his armpit.

"Then, Contender Ritchie will have the first pick. Go!"

With a move that spoke of years of experience, Ritchie flung a Pokeball out.

In a flash of light, an absolutely gargantuan Tyrannitar announced its arrival with a earth shaking roar.

Ash simply observed the specimen with great interest. Its thick hide was battle scared and a deep jewel green while its armoured tummy was a deep sapphire blue as opposed to the light purple that it usually was, showing its decade of experience in battles. The Tyrannitar itself was easily over 3 metres tall and an absolutely perfect specimen of an Alpha male of its kind.

Nodding with approval, Ash casually lobbed his own ball onto the field.

When the flash died down, the audience went silent.

A Rattata sat on its hind feet, casually nibbling at an itch on its tail.

"Ash?"

"Mmm?" Ash looked up absent-mindedly as he idly nibbled on a drumstick he pulled out of the large tablecloth sack on his back.

"Are you sure you didn't pick the wrong ball?"

"No. Not really?" He glanced at the drumstick and scowled, "Damn it's cold already."

Ritchie grimaced as he glanced at the Rattata pitifully, "Very well. Tyranitar, finish it! Stone Edge!"

 **Play Pokemon – I Believe**

The massive Tyrannitar snorted derisively before rearing back with another earth shaking roar as shards of sharp rocks began levitating around him, each one as large as a full adult male human and then let them loose.

The massive rocks hurtled towards the seemingly unaware Rattata when there was a bright blue flash between the two combatants.

All at once, there was a heavy thud as Tyrannitar collapsed with a groan.

 **[What… the… hell?]** Cotton breathed with disbelief.

Everyone seemed to agree with the announcer as the referee finally shook himself awake from the shock and announced the victory to a grinning Ash.

 **[Did everyone see that? A Rattata. A tiny, scruffy, little Arceus be-damned** _ **Rattata**_ **just** _ **downed**_ **Trainer Ritche's** _ **Tyrannitar**_ **, a consistent contender and highly valued member of Ritchie's team in every Pokemon League he has participated in so far! And in LESS THAN A SECOND.]** Cotton practically yelled into the mike with excitement, **[Can we get a replay of that!?]**

On the screen, the exact moment when the Tyrannitar let loose appeared as the scene played in slow motion.

As the rocks hurtled across the screen, blindingly fast even with the video already slowed down, Rattata could be seen glancing at the rocks. Its reddish brown eyes gleaming as it hunched over.

Just as the rocks hit, the puffed up crest on its head glowed a deep red. Bracing against the heavy impacts with its tiny body, a bright blue flash, the signature activation of a Counter, a move that Rattatas were not usually born with Cotton noted, blinded the screen.

As the screen slowly dimmed again, the Rattata, wounded but definitely still in the game, could be seen hurtling towards the still unaware Tyrannitar, stopping a split second with near perfect timing before the bright blue glow slammed into Tyrannitar with crippling force before it body slammed the reeling green dinosaur and tearing the last bits of consciousness from its opponent.

 **[I don't believe. I'm seeing it and I STILL DON'T BELIEVE IT. WHAT THE HELL IS HE FEEDING THAT RAT AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME!?]** Pepper roared into his mike while the audience mere gawped at the screen dumbly, **[WHAT IS WITH THAT INSANE SPEED AND TIMING?!]**

Meanwhile, Ash simply smiled to himself as he opened his arms wide and laughed when Rattata jumped straight into his arms with a happy squeak.

"You did good. Very good." Ash murmured, "You surprised all of them!"

He gestured to the mob, "None of them thought you'd win, but you did. That's how far you've come. Do you regret it?"

The little purple rat shook its head vigorously and nuzzled Ash's chin happily while his trainer chuckled.

"You feel like you can go on? They ain't gonna look down on you anymore, so there goes one of your trump cards. Still feel like you take on the world?"

Rattata nodded determinedly before jumping back on to the field with a spirited growl as Ritchie sent his next pokemon in, a hulking Snorlax that seemed more than happy for a fight, contrary to the usual sleepy laziness its species were known for.

"Atta boy. Same rules then." Ash nodded approvingly, "I won't help or give you orders. This battle is yours and yours alone. Now show me how far you've come."

The referee eyed the Rattata with newfound respect.

"The second round between Contender Ritchie and Ash begins now!"

Rattata howled as it sped towards the Snorlax, its beady eyes gleamed as the Snorlax hefted one fist back.

"Snorlax, that Rattata knows Counter, so don't attack first! Let it come to you!"

Rattata's eyes gleamed even more as a white glowed surrounded its tiny body.

"It's coming Snorlax, ignore the Quick Atttack and focus on finding out its position once it's exhausted, then hit it with Hyper Beam!" Ritchie cried out with surprising calm.

The white ball of energy that was Rattata slammed into Snorlax before speeding away and then slamming into Snorlax again despite its efforts seeming to be completely useless in the face of Snorlax's great bulk. Rather than give up, the determined little purple rat merely slammed into Snorlax again and again and again and again until it skidded to a stop next to Ash podium, panting heavily with exertion.

"There Snorlax! **Hyper Beam**!"

The Snorlax merely stood still, causing Ritchie to gape at its disobedience.

And then, it slowly keeled over with a thunderous crash, revealing that it had already lost the last shred of its consciousness.

"What!?" Ritchie breathed dumbly.

 **[I DON'T BELIEVE IT. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THERE'S YOUR SECOND MIRACLE OF THE DAY!]**

"It wasn't a Quick Attack." Ash noted quietly while Ritchie glanced at him sharply.

The taller man simply smiled thinly, "You're mistake was assuming Rattata was using Quick Attack. It used the speed from Quick Attack yes, but only so that it could hide the fact that it was just trying to get close enough to Snorlax, while the glow from Quick Attack itself hid the fact that he was using Super Fang. Then you made the further mistake of assuming that Snorlax's bulk would protect it from Rattata."

"My Snorlax is one of the toughest Pokemon alive. A Super Fang isn't going to take him down anytime soon." Ritchie protested heatedly.

Ash shrugged, "That's true I suppose. Or it would be if Rattata only used Super Fang once that is."

He pointed at Snorlax, And Ritchie finally noticed the multitude of bite marks on the poor Sleeping Pokemon, "Rattata hit him **six** times. Five of those were Super Fangs, the last was a Hyper Fang. Your Snorlax was unconscious long before either of you realized what Rattata was doing."

"That's not fair! What kind of Rattata would be able to do something like that?!"

The dark haired man smiled proudly as he petted the exhausted lump of unmoving fur that was Rattata, "The kind that used to be a useless failure."

Ritchie gritted his teeth and flung a Pokeball out, summoning his strongest Pokemon out.

An absolutely colossal Charizard, battle scared and highly experienced, roared intimidatingly as the flames in his eyes showed a terrible intelligence gleaming behind it.

The dark haired trainer watched the Charizard for a moment before he squinted at the sky.

It was already getting a little cloudy and thick fat drops of water were already falling.

He patted his backpack.

"Feel like a rematch against an old friend?"

The backpack twitched before two yellow ears poked out.

"Pika?"

"It's Ritchie. Zippo's helluva lot bigger than I remember though."

"Pika."

Ash grinned, "Try not to go overboard."

The little yellow rat yawned as it jumped out of the backpack, slapping Ash with its tail in the process for that insult.

Glaring at the rat for a while, Ash sighed in resignation as he pulled his ragged cap lower so that he could shield his eyes from the rain, though anyone looking could see the thin smile pulling at his lips.

"Sorry Ritchie, but there's no shelter. Not from **this** storm."

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

Ash yawned tiredly as he exited the bathroom.

He was tired and more than a little ready to just fall asleep in the first bed he had in the past two months, but he fully expected that he'd have to go through an interrogation first.

Dawn's open mouthed awe and Misty's calculated gaze told him as much.

That said, he felt a lot more capable of facing down the two of them now that he had bathed and shaved for the first time in months.

He was definitely rather gratified by Cynthia's thoughtful look though.

Still, might as well get on with it.

Stepping out of the glass shower, he looked around and frowned.

Shrugging on a bathrobe, he gingerly poked one head out of the shower, "Uhm… Misty? Dawn?"

Cynthia who was sitting on the sofa comfortably with Rattata snoozing contentedly on her lap looked up, "They went out for a while."

"Uh… why?"

"They predicted you wouldn't have any spare clothes, so they went out to get you some."

"That doesn't really explain why my clothes are gone…"

"They already burned that mess." Cynthia deadpanned, "How long have you been wearing those rags?"

Ash winced, "For the past 2 months give or take?"

Cynthia gave him a disgusted look at his admission.

"It's not my fault." Ash mumbled, trying to protect the last of his dignity, "I kinda had a full luggage bag… which I lost…. Along with all my money… And then I got lost… before I could contact anyone…"

The pale yellow haired woman stared at him.

"You seem to get lost a lot don't you?" She commented critically.

Ash crouched down in a corner and began to mope, "I try. I try my best. But somehow, the map always brings me somewhere else. Why? WHY ARCEUS? WHY!? WHY DID YOU MAKE NORTH SO HARD TO FIND?"

Cynthia smiled at the dark haired man's comical sobbing.

"Now I know why you always need to be travelling with people." She observed dryly as she ran one finger along the Rattata's unusual red crest.

"Most Rattata's don't have this crest do they?"

"They don't." Ash warily left the safety of the bathroom, making sure to wrap his bathrobe a little tighter around him, "This one had a particularly horn…. aggressive Vigoroth as father as far as I can tell."

The little purple rat squeaked and stretched contentedly under Cynthia's ministrations.

"So that's why he knows Counter."

"Pretty much." Ash replied as he allowed Pikachu to hop onto his shoulder. Smiling to himself, he scratched Pikachu's chin for a moment before it abandoned him in favour of Cynthia.

"That doesn't really explain how he can do what he did in that match though." Cynthia observed critically, her hands now fully occupied by Rattata and Pikachu.

 **Play Pokemon – Lugia's Song**

"It wasn't easy." Ash admitted blandly, "Using moves like that consume far more of his focus and stamina than it would if he had just used one skill at a time, roughly three times more at my best estimate. That's why the first thing I had him do was endurance training. Even then, the first time we managed to do it, he was out like a light for an entire day just from doing that combo a single time." The dark haired man explained simply.

"On the bright side, as a Rattata, he is already naturally fast, and since he refuses to evolve into a Raticate, he's actually a lot faster than most people expect. The problem lies in the fact that without evolving, he's far squishier than a normal Raticate and he reaches his stamina limit far faster as well."

"So why didn't you evolve him?" Cynthia asked curiously.

"He didn't want to, so I didn't see any reason to force him to do it either." The dark haired man replied with a crooked grin, "Probably had something to do with the fact that most of his pack were Raticate's that regularly bullied him."

"His pack were bullying him?"

"Something like that." The dark haired man simply shrugged, "When I found him shortly after I hit land in Sinnoh, a bunch of Raticate were biting him relentlessly. After I chased them away, I tried to heal him, but he wouldn't let me close." Ash grinned nostalgically, "The little guy was feisty as hell. Instead of going somewhere to rest, he _chased_ the Raticates down. Of course, he got beaten down again, and this time it was bad enough that he couldn't stop me from helping him even if he didn't like it."

He leaned over to scratch Rattata's chin and the little rat pokemon purred even louder, curling up into a tight ball of contentment on Cynthia's lap.

Ash quirked one eyebrow when he noticed Cynthia was watching him curiously through a curtain of pale yellow hair.

"Yes?"

"You're… different from what I remember."

The dark haired man grinned, "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"It **was** a compliment." The pale yellow haired woman replied casually, "Back then you were already pretty talented with Pokemon. You instinctively knew how they felt and you responded accordingly…."

"But I was reckless? Naïve? Wasting my potential? That just because I was able to understand how Pokemon felt didn't mean that I was going to the best Pokemon Master?"

Cynthia stared at him blankly, "Well… those aren't exactly the words I would have used…"

Ash shrugged casually, "It was one of the first few things someone told me to my face when I arrived in that Arceus forsaken place. Her exact words that I should get the hell out of there because being able to empathize with Pokemon wasn't going to help me win a battle, or stop someone from shooting me in the head for that matter." He smiled a little grimly at Cynthia's shocked expression, "It took me a lot longer than necessary to understand what she meant. And it cost me far more than I'm willing to pay."

"What… where did you go exactly? A lot of people were rather worried when you went missing just like that." The Sinnoh Pokemon Champion inquired curiously.

"It was a horrible place." Ash admitted without hesitation, "Unlike almost every region I've been to, Pokémon were pretty scarce there. Mostly because almost all the water there has more poison in it than water. Even the plants were downright deadly, and entire sections of the continent were practically closed down because the plants have consumed them whole. All this simply meant that the locals there rarely ventured outside of the cities that were still intact."

Cynthia blanched at the grim picture Ash was painting, "But… But didn't the local Gym Leaders, the police, or even the Elite Fours do anything?"

"Most of them were, but they were pretty much at their limit just _keeping_ the place from becoming Orre 2.0 and stopping it from turning into a full blown anarchy." Ash replied with deceptive calm, "The problem here is that the local gang and the sole reason the entire bloody region is such a complete clusterfuck, Team Meteor, already had an iron grip on the whole place when I arrived. The fact that what Gym Leaders or Elite Four that weren't fighting them were on their side instead was just the Cherrim on top of the Grimer cake."

"How did you even get there?" Cynthia frowned, "I can't imagine any of the existing shipping companies having any regular communications with a place like that."

"They don't." The dark haired man murmured absent-mindedly, "On the day I was supposed go to Kalos, I _accidentally_ got on a ship that just so happened to be making one of its monthly supply runs to the Opal Ward that day."

"You got on the wrong ship." Cynthia stared at him in a deadpan manner, "Really?"

Ash laughed a little bitterly, "And the best part was that I didn't even notice that there was no one else on the ship other than myself, the captain, and two mute sailors until the entire fucking ship **exploded** in a terrorist attack before the goods could be unloaded."

"What!?"

The dark haired man sighed as he leaned into the couch with a glassy smile tugging at his lips, "I lost everything in my backpack that day. My Pokedex and PokeNav were trashed, but Pikachu and I were alive, albeit hurt and burned badly, but alive. My only other consolation was that I had already sent all my Pokemon to Professor Oak before I got on the ship, or they…."

Ash swallowed harshly, "Either way, I couldn't even let anyone know I was at least still alive because there wasn't any way to get a signal out of the region with Team Meteor locking down all the signal towers. The only saving grace was that the first person met there, Professor Ame, was helpful enough to lend me a comm device that worked within the region and some supplies."

Frowning, Cynthia leaned over to touch his shoulder.

Ash grinned weakly, "I'm fine and everything turned out alright anyway. Granted, it took about five years, but eventually Team Meteor were defeated and the continent finally re-established some measure of contact with the rest of the world." He pursed his lips, "The first thing I did was try to contact Mom. And when that didn't work, I jumped on the first ship back to reality."

"And promptly got lost again." Cynthia noted with an amused smile.

Ash merely guffawed, "For about 2 months." He agreed through tears of laughter.

"So how did you manage to register for the PWT when you couldn't even call anyone?" The pale yellow haired woman inquired curiously.

The 22 year old trainer grinned, "I didn't. I knew it was happening of course, because some of the Gym Leaders from that region were invited as part of the whole re-establishing communication process, and they told me, but I wasn't registered until today. I just went to the receptionist and hoped that I could still register even without a Pokedex."

"And that worked?" Cynthia pointed out doubtfully.

"You saw for yourself didn't you?"

Cynthia chuckled softly at Ash's cavalier grin when Pikachu's ears twitched.

Ash instantly paled.

"Crap."

Lunging at Cynthia, he grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her down when the door exploded inwards.

Coughing at the amount of smoke and dust swirling in the room, he glanced at the windows and groaned as he saw a slight fluttering outside.

Then he looked at the balcony and sighed when there was a very elegant looking Froslass hovering in midair and grinning at him as it breathed out gusty blasts of wind to block any possible exit with ice.

Resigning himself, he shielded Cynthia the best he could, uncomfortably aware that he was only wearing a very thin and fluffy bathrobe and sighed heavily.

"Ketchum. You have a pair of very big ones don't you?" A voice growled as a red headed woman with armour attached to her right hand and wielding a _sword_ stalked through what used to be the main entrance, a timid looking woman with violet hair top toeing in behind her while a peppy looking woman with blond hair bounced in next to them.

Ash grimaced, "That's two…"

The windows cracked in a flurry of supersonic waves before they shattered with a loud tinkling, allowing a man with violet, spiky hair to alight from a large grinning Crobat.

"Three…."

The final figure made her presence known with a flourish as Froslass built a spiralling column of ice for her trainer to ascend.

"Four…"

He was in deep shit wasn't he, Ash mused to himself.

Three was probably the most he could handle with Laura there, but Four was pushing it.

"What the hell!" He vaguely heard Misty shrieking as the water trainer and Dawn appeared in the doorway, pokeballs at the ready for a battle.

Ash merely placed his face in his palms with a heavy groan.

Wonderful.

How absolutely wonderful.

Dawn gasped as she recognized the tearfully angry violet haired woman as one of Reborn's Elite Four, the very same one that she had seen on the TV this morning.

What the hell was she doing here and assaulting one of her friends no less?

Ash meanwhile looked around him before wincing, "Really, Laura? **Four** Gym Leaders? **Really**?"

"To be fair, Laura didn't agree either." The red head with the white fringe wearing an armoured gauntlet on her right arm grinned evilly as she closed on in a paling Ash before she grabbed Ash by his lapel and dragged the taller man down to eye level, "But everyone here knows that how slippery you can be when you want to be."

"This is going to hurt isn't it, Titania?" Ash commented blandly.

"That depends, Master Ketchum…. Imagine our surprise when our Champion suddenly went missing two months ago. We tracked him of course, all the way to Sinnoh. Where he went missing. AGAIN. And then reappearing in Johto, two entire fragging continents away, of all places." The woman who was apparently named Titania bellowed point blank at Ash, "Care to explain?!"

"Champion?!" Cynthia squawked from behind Ash.

Titania shot Ash the evil eye before she let him go, "I can see you didn't even bother telling your friends about this. Typical."

"In my defence, I never really accepted the position." The dark haired man in questioned hedged.

"Mere formalities. You shut down the rebellion, you reunited every single Gym Leader in the region and then you handed Solaris' ass to him on a silver platter. As the saying goes, if you break it, you bought it." Titania brushed his protests off casually.

"Somehow, all that just makes me feel even more like running away." Ash commented blandly.

"Why do you think we brought not two, not three, but **four** Gym Leaders here, Master Ketchum?" Titania replied as she curtsied with a mocking grin, "Any less and you'd have knocked us all out before you went on your merry way. Probably disappearing for another half a year or so again." The angry red head muttered that last part under her breath.

"Wait, wait, wait. What the hell is going on here?" Misty cut in sharply while Dawn seemed she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, "Why does everyone keep referring to Ash as a Champion?!"

Taking pity on Ash's friends, Corey smirked and bowed, Julia, Serra and Laura taking the senior Gym Leader's cue to curtsy as well.

"Ladies." He began with a cultured voice, "I'm honoured to present to you Reborn's very own scruffy vagabond of a Pokemon Champion; Ash Ketchum."

The three of them stared blankly at Ash.

Ash awkwardly waved at Misty, Dawn and Cynthia.

"Uhm… Oops?"

 ******Rippling Eclipse Chapter 1 End******

One of the most obvious things I noticed was how almost every single one fic used the typical "Ash, or whoever the main character is, went missing and then came back moody, dark and strong" cliché. This fic is basically my answer to that cliché.

Do note that this is a one shot, which is why there is no title for this fic. I haven't really thought long enough down the road to decide on a suitable title. There are also no further chapters planned unless the reception is enough to persuade me to even further divide my time from already existing works.


	2. Observe, Adapt, Conquer

**Rippling Eclipse Chapter 2**

 **Observe, Adapt, Conquer – Mystic**

Disclaimer: All Pokemon characters used belong to the Pokemon Company, a Japanese consortium between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Furthermore, all other characters used are either of my own creation and thus are not meant to resemble anyone in real life. This includes creations used from other creators with their authorization. Thank you Amethyst.

I decided to post a supplementary chapter to the first one because it seems like there has been a few confusions about the Gym Leaders at the end of the first chapter. To begin with, the Gym Leaders aren't OCs, or at least not in the sense that I made them, nor are they replicas of characters from other fandoms. They are from a nice little game I stumbled on thanks to my trawling through the internet, Pokemon Reborn, an RPGMaker game done by someone who calls herself Amethyst. The game is currently up to its 15th episode. That said, I'm only a few episodes in because GODFUCKINGDAMMITWHYISTHISGAMESOHARD it's rather… difficult… *flips table*

The second thing I wanted to clarify would be a general timeline of sorts seeing as I don't believe anyone should be able to travel several continents and remain 10 years old the entire time, so I adjusted my story to match.

Thirdly, I can't see reviews at all, at least not since a week ago. So I have no idea what you guys are actually saying since I don't have email alert on. I can see the counter going sky high though, so I assume it's a good thing. That, or the story might just be pissing a lot of people off.

 ******** **Rippling Eclipse ******

 **Soundtrack List**

Pokemon XY – B/W Emotion Theme

Linkin Park – What I've Done

 ******** **Rippling Eclipse ******

"Ash." Misty murmured gently as if trying to persuade a sulking baby, "Can you tell us again, slowly this time, how in the world you ended up as a Champion?"

"I already told you." The tall man muttered under his breath, "In fact, I've already told you 3 times."

"You weren't being very clear about the whole matter though." Dawn commented with a nervous little giggle and a side glance at the four grinning Gym Leaders sitting around their trashed room as they enjoyed the sight of a squirming Ash.

The fact that all four of them were positioned so that they covered all possible points of exit did not escape her eyes at all.

"Like I said, all I did was try and get back home." The brown haired man grumbled, "And Team Meteor happened to be in the way. So I kinda got rid of them and then they kinda randomly decided to make me Champion before I hopped on the first boat home."

The red head snorted derisively, prompting Misty to screw her eyes shut as she valiantly forced the vein throbbing on her temple down without resorting to her old habit of hammering the huge man-child that was one of her best friends into the ground first.

As a whole, the four Gym Leaders, Corey, Titania, Julia and Serra didn't seem to respect Ash like most people would a Champion but she didn't really think they would go as far as just watch as someone physically assaulted their alleged Champion.

Even if Titania looked like she was perfectly willing to do just that with that massive war blade out and resting on her lap.

"People usually do not just ' _Kinda get rid of the local Team Whatever_ ' and then _'kinda randomly get crowned as Champion'_ , Ash." Misty gritted out as politely as she could.

"To be fair, I've ' _kinda been getting rid of a lot of Team Whatevers'_ since I was 13 I think? And I'm not even including Team Rocket in that. It's gotten to the point where it's almost a hobby… I'm not even sure what that says about me or my life, but at least the randomly getting crowned part is new." Ash concluded cheerfully.

"Ash, STOP JOKING!"

"I'm being serious, that's all I really did. Hell, I didn't even get to **fight** the Reborn Elite Four before that crazy woman over there just up and dumped the title on me and that's like one of the major _pre-requisites_ before you can even be _considered_ as Champion material!"

He turned his big watery doe eyes on Laura, "You tell them Laura, I never got around to fighting you guys right?"

The woman named Laura and the elected spokeswoman of Reborn's Elite Four (if only because the other 3 couldn't be bothered) twiddled her thumbs nervously and nodded, "I… I would have liked… to have a match with you though…" She murmured haltingly.

"And I'll gladly give you one," Ash replied soothingly before adding under his breath, "as soon as Misty stops being so anal about this and I get to talk to my Mom that is."

"So what's the deal with the whole Champion business?" Misty retorted, "You can't tell me that they literally just decided to give the title to some random dude walking on the street."

"Some random dude that literally stomped Solaris, the Leader of Team Meteor and the biggest pain in the ass to ever exist, to the curb, and did it so hard that the imprint of his face is still there to this day." Corey corrected Misty airily.

Ash would later swear that he could almost see Misty's eyes glow red as she slowly turned around to glare at him.

"In my defence, he was a _really_ annoying prick." Ash pointed out, "And he was in the way."

Corey grinned and was about comment again when he felt a frisson run down his back, a cold, creepy slithering sensation that instantly set all of his well-honed battle instincts into overdrive.

The Poison Gym Leader forcibly adopted a careless grin as he leaned back into the wall as harmlessly as he could.

Almost all of the Reborn Gym Leaders enjoyed poking fun at their oh-so-venerable Champion but he was the one who did it the most, arguably because he was still a little upset about being punched out by the deceptively strong youth. Either way, Ash didn't seem to mind, and even joined in on their banters with a self-depreciating humour most of the time until it came to certain topics.

That was when the Pokemon hiding the darkness would make its presence known.

And he wasn't stupid enough to piss that thing off, or fight it alone for that matter.

He had seen it decimate _entire squads_ _alone_ and he had no wish to repeat the experience.

Misty drew a deep breath and then stared at the wall blankly.

"Uhm… Mist?" Ash warily waved a hand in front of her, ready to pull it back in a snap just in case she decided to lose it and take a bite out of him, "You okay? Did you pop a vessel?"

Misty growled at him ferociously and Ash wisely decided his fingers would be a lot safer the further away they were from her.

On his shoulders, a certain yellow rat snickered and jumped off before scooting onto the furious red head's shoulder. Pikachu gently nuzzled Misty for a moment, discretely releasing tiny pulses of soothing electricity, "Pikachu-Pi, pika, Pikachu, Pikapi."

Somehow, that seemed to calm the orange head down enough that she could smile half-heartedly at Pikachu, "I know, I know. He's just being the same idiot he always is. Bumbling around and somehow doing all the right things. I… we were all just _so_ worried."

Ash stiffened for a moment but Misty didn't notice because Pikachu had slipped underneath her arms and rubbed his head on her chin soothingly.

"Great." Ash muttered under his breath, "Pikachu's already getting better than I am at flirting and he's a rat."

There was a bright yellow flash and Ash yelped as his best friend sent a stream of extra concentrated electricity directly at him.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

Ash rubbed his hair, trying and failing to get the electrified spikes to lie down, or at least enough that he didn't look like a full blown hobo with a tendency to stick forks into wall plugs.

"You might as well just chop the whole lot off. It's not like that's going to work."

Ash glared at Titania and Corey as the three of them plodded down the street, "I'd rather chop yours off first. It's not like you're using it for anything."

"Then you'd be wrong." Corey commented matter of factly, "I've heard in passing that Amaria _adores_ her fringe. It makes her look _dashing._ "

Titania flushed bright red before she tried to jab her colleague with an elbow.

Corey simply side stepped her attempt with a smug smirk.

Ash merely guffawed out loud and waggled his eyebrows at the senior Gym Leader, "Dashing huh? I happen to have a cap or two you can borrow to make it stand out even more."

"The day I take fashion advice from a boy who thinks that wearing the same jacket for an entire year is perfectly acceptable, is the day that I voluntarily turn into a full-blown hermit." Titania retorted acidly.

"Amaria would be heartbroken if that happened." Ash commented dryly, "Where is she anyway?"

"Holding down the fort back home." The red head replied blithely, "Someone had to with four of us away."

"Speaking of which, Alice would like to have a word with you when you get back." Corey interjected smoothly, "She is extremely displeased that you have seen fit to dump your work on her."

Ash winced, "If you guys are trying to make me go back, you're not doing a very good job of it." He mumbled under his breath.

The violet haired man merely shrugged as he patted the younger man's shoulder sympathetically.

Alice, the only other candidate for the Champion spot was slim, slender, petite, and if you were into the whole ghostly waif dressed in lacy black gothic clothes thing, actually very beautiful.

She also had an extremely ear piercing way of letting you that she was not happy.

The two youths actually got along fairly well.

That is, Ash would do something really stupid, and Alice would let him know in all her ear piercing glory, how _amused_ she was.

Titania regarded him for a long moment as they walked, "Why didn't you tell her the whole thing? I was under the assumption that the two of you are fairly close."

"We are." Ash replied with a weary smile, "I'm just… not ready to tell her everything."

"Is that why you wanted to talk to your mother first?" Titania inquired clinically, "So you can unburden yourself in front of the one person you are sure will not reject you before you try to face the rest of the world?"

"You're not entirely wrong." Ash admitted with a sweat drop, "Incidentally, has anyone ever told you that you have this very unpleasantly blunt way of commenting on things?"

"The irony..." Corey drawled.

"If it cuts straight to the heart of the matter, I find that it suits me fine." The woman named Titania noted loftily, "Dancing around the issue is rather annoying."

"Is that why you stab everyone that annoys you?" the brown haired man murmured with a half grin.

"The fact that it turns Amaria on every time she comes back splattered in blood and guts probably helps as well." The other Gym Leader remarked with a smug grin.

"HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?!"

Ash simply sighed and stepped to one side as Titania, predictably started swinging her massive war blade at her impudent… friend, her face as flushed as a smashed tomato.

On the bright side, the two of them actually considered each other friends now.

Or at least tolerated companions…

Ok, so Titania still thought Corey was going to stab all of them in the back and Corey wasn't going to try and change her mind any time soon because watching Titania blow her top every time he said something was apparently pretty funny.

On the bright side, they were at least talking somewhat civilly when they weren't outright antagonizing each other and Titania did promise that she wouldn't kill him until he made up for all the wrongs he had wrought.

He could take that.

"You should probably try and stop them before Officer Jenny comes and arrests the lot of you."

Ash glanced behind him and grinned lightly, "Nah. She won't kill him."

Cynthia observed the two adults run around the park with a critical eye, "She certainly seems to be doing her best."

"It's just how the two of them communicate." Ash shrugged half-heartedly, "I've essentially given up trying to persuade the two of them to smile and shake hands." Then he grinned, "So you're on babysitting duty again?"

Cynthia smiled thinly, "Misty is still a little high strung and the less said about Dawn the better. And since I'm the only one that's not quite as emotional, I guess that makes me your guard for the day by default."

"I'm not complaining." Ash noted, his grin getting even wider.

"So… Champion Ketchum." Cynthia smiled teasingly, "Has a ring to it, don't you think?"

The grin fell off the brown haired man's face instantly as he shrugged listlessly, causing Cynthia to quirk one eyebrow, "You disagree?"

"Not entirely." Ash signed quietly and gestured for them to start walking again, ignoring Corey and Titania.

It didn't take very long before Cynthia opened her mouth again, "So?"

Ash merely glanced at her with an amused grin, "You know, I've never noticed before, but you tend to wrinkle your nose a little when you're trying to figure something out."

Cynthia blinked slowly, "You're avoiding the topic." She said with a measured tone, "The Ash I remember never stopped going on about becoming a Pokemon Master." She hummed non-committally, "Granted, you've never really specified what that entailed either since I've never heard of one before, but I'd assume that you would be a little more enthusiastic about receiving the title of Reborn's Champion."

"Ah…" Ash nodded in understanding, "So that's what you were curious about. You wanted to know why I ran from Reborn, from my responsibilities as their Champion."

"Those were not the words I would have used." Cynthia replied carefully.

"But they are your intention nonetheless." Ash noted with a wry half smile before shrugging, "The short of it was that I don't consider myself qualified for the position. I haven't battled with their Elite Four. Hell, I haven't even gathered all 18 of Reborn's Gym Badges."

He spread his hands out and grinned helplessly at Cynthia's surprised look, "Yeah. In most cases, you need just a minimum of 8 to qualify for the Pokemon League, but in Reborn, you need all 18, and the final three Gym Leaders are **all** Champion level and MASSIVE hardasses to boot. And that's still not the best part."

"Which would be..?"

"Even if you get all 18 badges there's no point because they don't even **have** a Pokemon League in place much less a Pokemon Champion." Ash explained wryly, "Everywhere else, a Pokemon League is there to regulate the trainers and provide a somewhat structured place for trainers to battle it out, but Reborn doesn't have one because no one can be bothered. The only thing that even vaguely qualifies as some sort of League are the Gyms Leaders themselves, some of whom don't even **know** who the current Elite Four are, and with the exception of one or two of the quirkier ones, they are **all** more concerned with crisis control and making sure their people stay alive rather than the coordination some fancy tournament."

Cynthia nodded slowly, "In other words, your position as their Champion may look official and ratified by at least four Gym Leaders and one of the Elite Four, but in substance you're just a figure head of sorts that they can use to rally around."

Ash blinked, "That…. Actually sounds a lot worse than it really is. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or disturbed."

Cynthia flushed, "Sorry. I let my mind wander a little."

"Don't worry about it." Ash shrugged, "You're not entirely wrong after all."

He smiled gently and glanced back at Corey and Titania, briefly wondering where the two Gym Leaders had gone running off to.

Chances were, the two of them would get arrested and then Laura would have to bail them out tomorrow morning.

He was perfectly fine with that as long as they stayed out of his hair.

"To be fair, it's not their fault the whole place is as fucked up as it is. There's a lot of good people there who don't deserve it and I fully intend to go back. It was a…. hard journey. But I've seen the potential in that place. I want to help them get back on their feet, and then, do the whole thing again. Properly this time."

"Maybe even earn that title for real?"

"Possibly." Ash replied with a mischievous grin as he struck a comical pose with one finger pointing directly at the moon, "I might even go one step further and just become the Pokemon Master instead."

"I did mention that you never really clarified what that title meant yes?" Cynthia deadpanned as she watched the idiot dance a little jig around the square they had found themselves in.

Ash stopped for a moment before sweat dropping, "To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea either. But I assume that it is something sufficiently awesome and tough or we'd have one by now."

Cynthia couldn't help it, she chuckled.

Ash glanced at her and smiled thinly.

The Sinnoh region's champion was dressed in a cooling baby blue blouse and a pair of black trousers. It was simple and a stark difference from her usual full black, fur lined coat.

She smiled thinly, "What higher achievement is there, if not to achieve the unachievable… correct?"

"What."

Ash looked remarkably like his mental processes had crashed trying to understand what she just said.

The pale blond haired woman rolled her eyes, "It's a quote I picked up from a book."

"Yeah… but what does it mean?"

"Go read a book if you want to find out that badly." She remarked dryly.

Her nose wrinkled as Ash rubbed his chin silently.

"What are you thinking about?" Sinnoh's Champion asked warily.

"I'm trying to remember when was the last time I opened the book and actually read it." Ash admitted sheepishly, "I think I was about… 9?"

Ash frowned at Cynthia who had gone as still as a statue.

"Why do you look so horrified? Like you're about to drag someone back to your apartment and then force feed him paper…"

Ash blinked.

"Oh."

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"….. Why are we hiding in a bush?"

"Because this is interesting."

Corey glanced at where Titania was peeking at.

"You consider Ash trying, and failing miserably in the process, to **flirt** as…. interesting." Corey half stated, half asked in the manner of someone doubting his accomplice's sanity.

"Would you like me to purchase some skirts and knitting needles for you as well? Mayhaps even some lacy lingerie?"

Titania glared at him and Corey suddenly found the tip of a very sharp blade resting on his Adam's apple.

"Shutting up now."

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

A woman with light pink curls, dressed in a white nurse's uniform smiled uncertainly, "Uhm…. Mister Ketchum, yes? How can I help you?"

"Yup." The brown haired man standing in front of her in a pair of ordinary blue slacks and a black jacket with a white strip around the shoulders beamed brightly, "I came to pick up a package from Mr. Scott of Hoenn. I was told it would be arriving this evening."

"Ah…" The Nurse Joy forced another smile as her eyes flickered to the silent woman standing next to the man, glaring holes into his back. She tapped a few keys into her desktop and nodded slowly, "There is indeed a package for a Mr. Ketchum from a Mr. Scott…. Do you have any identification?"

The tall brown haired man picked up a dirty brown bag and began digging around inside it for a moment before he pulled out a small piece of crumpled paper that he handed to the Nurse Joy, "Here. He said that this would be enough."

The pink haired Nurse accepted the piece of paper gingerly and noted down the flamboyant signature along with a stamp to signify the owner of the signature. Glancing at the order on her desktop, she nodded uncertainly, "There certainly is a note attached to the order that says something along those lines." She bowed, "Please wait for a moment."

"Of course." The cheerful man agreed as the Nurse knelt down and began to rummage about under the counter before retrieving a package wrapped in thick and durable brown paper, "Thank you so much."

As the two of them left the counter, Ash breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he tore off the paper to reveal a cutting edge PokeNav straight from the Devon Corporation, "Finally." He muttered under his breath, "I felt so utterly isolated without one of these."

He started the little device while Cynthia peered over his shoulder with curiosity, "When did you even get the time to talk to Scott or ask him to get you one of these?"

"When I was trying to register for the Tournament earlier today." Ash replied blithely, "The receptionist originally wouldn't even give me a second look. It was pure coincidence that Scott was nearby and doing his usual _'I'm stalking young kids with "_ _ **potential"**_ _for their personal information_ ' routine when he saw me arguing with the woman."

Cynthia regarded him with amusement, "Does he know what you really think about what he does?"

"I said it to his face the first time I met him." Ash admitted with a grin, "He thought it was hilarious. Either way, I only got in precisely because one of the other invitees cancelled at the last minute and Scott was happy to vouch for me. Apparently he had some pull with the organisers… not that I'm surprised to be honest."

Ash humphed happily as the device finally completed booting up and registering him as its new owner.

"After that, he sort of grilled me about why I dropped off the grid for so long. When I told him my PokeNav was trashed he did this twirly sort of gasp and instantly promised to get me a new one by today."

Ash blinked, "And of course, he's already registered himself in this Nav's contact list. Why am I surprised again?" the brown haired man noted dryly.

"I fully expect you to start getting invites to his new Frontier." Cynthia commented lightly, "I don't doubt he's already chomping at the bits to see how you fare after your match today."

Ash chuckled, "It's the least I can do for a new, free PokeNav I guess."

He tapped a few buttons and made a happy noise, "This thing even has a recording system. Just what I need."

"So do we go back to the hotel now?"

A curious little smile tugged at the young man's lips, "Not quite yet. There's still something I want to do."

Cynthia quirked one eyebrow delicately and curiously followed as the younger man set off with a purpose in his steps.

Her curiosity only increased as Ash confidently took a less well tread path down to the more downscale part of town where the pubs and bars were predominantly located.

She hadn't pegged Ash to be the type to drink to be honest, but then he didn't seem like he was here for alcohol, especially when he stopped every meters to glance at a bar or pub curiously for a moment before shaking his head at something and continuing.

Cynthia's curiosity finally peaked as the younger Champion stopped in front of a dingy looking bar and made a pleased sound before entering with a gesture to follow him.

Inside, Ash grinned as he found a table in a rather out of the way corner. Flamboyantly, he pulled a chair out and gestured for her to take the seat. Her eyebrows rose again and Cynthia acquiesced with an amused smile, wondering what the rather peculiar man had in mind.

Her patience lasted until the animated brown haired man waved at a waiter after he had taken a seat and the two of them had placed their orders, a small lemon soda for her, and a draft beer for him, before he pulled out his PokeNav again and began fiddling with it.

"Are you ever going to tell me what we're doing here?"

Ash looked up with those big brown eyes of his scrunched in confusion, "We're… having a drink?"

"Why this bar in particular?" Cynthia looked around the dingy bar, its ceiling was coated in grime and smoke while the floor looked as if they hadn't been cleaned in ages. She didn't really think that Ash actually intended on taking her out for a drink, but if he was, then she was slightly less than impressed.

"Oh." He pointed at the counter casually, "Because he's here."

Cynthia glanced to where he was pointing and her eyebrows rose again, "Ritchie? Ritchie Getem? Your opponent today?"

"Yup." Ash drawled as the waiter arrived with their drinks. Picking up his mug of foaming beer, Ash who was turning out to be a rather eccentric person after his five year vacation to what he himself described as hell on earth, grinned cheerfully, "I need to talk to him for a bit. As an apology for making you wait, feel free to order anything you like."

Her dark amber eyes watched with mild frustration as the younger trainer ambled over to Ritchie was clearly already several streets past tipsy if the empty jugs of beer around him was any indication, and heading full steam towards gloriously dead-to-the-world drunkenness.

Curious.

She was so curious, she couldn't stop fidgeting.

To be fair, almost every single Champions of the Pokemon Coalition were peculiar or eccentric in their own way, including herself, and she liked to think she was one of the more reasonable ones as opposed to someone like say…. Lance and his fetish for capes or the flamboyantly fabulous Wallace.

Ash might be reluctant to accept the title, but as far as she was concerned, he pretty much had the mentality down pat already.

"Curious are we?"

Cynthia stifled a yelp as a shadow slipped into the seat that Ash had recently abandoned while Corey simply smirked knowingly at her flushed face.

Flicking his wrist, there was a muted flare of light and a massive Crobat landed on his shoulder gently.

The Crobat made a snickering noise as it swivelled its head around, taking in its new surroundings curiously.

"Do you mind, Crobat?" Corey murmured quietly.

The final evolved form of Zubat tilted its head curiously in the general direction of where Corey was pointing and nodded before flaring its large leathery wings.

" _You alive there?"_

Cynthia started in surprise as Ash's voice suddenly echoed around them as if he was sitting right next to her.

Corey's infuriatingly knowing smirk just widened.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"You alive there?"

Ritchie groaned, "Goway…"

"No can do, old friend." Ash chirped as he took a seat next to Ritchie anyway, "I wanted to talk to you."

"Nothing t'talk bout… Lost… horribly."

Ash sighed and sipped from his beer, making a face at the bitterness.

Okay, maybe trying to act like a big boy in front of Cynthia probably wasn't the best idea he'd had so far. He had no idea why everyone seemed to like this stuff.

He glanced at Ritchie, "I'm not going to say that you put up a good fight, or any of that consoling bullshit. We're both good enough trainers to know how it went down. What I wanted to know was why you seemed so pissed off about it."

Ritchie grimaced and then poured the rest of his mug down his throat, "So you came to gloat?"

Rather than get put off by the red haired man's defensive shot, Ash merely took another sip, "Hardly," he replied blandly, "Just concerned about an old friend."

That seemed to sober Ritchie up dramatically as he sighed heavily, "Old friend huh…"

 **Play Pokemon XY – B/W Emotion Theme**

The red haired trainer made a face, "Do you remember how old we were when we fought each other at the Indigo League?"

"Bout 12 I think. It's been a while." Ash admitted.

Ritchie chortled, "That sounds bout right. We were 12 then, a whole decade ago."

Ash merely frowned at the other man's melancholic chuckle.

"Right after I lost that match to whatsherface-Sunta, I went to Johto. Heard you went to the Orange Islands instead, but I figured that's just what you wanted to do." Ritchie shrugged, "Either way, I travelled the whole damned place. Did the usual Gym routine and went to the League. I was hopeful. I spent two years fighting the best trainers and Gym Leaders in Kanto and even made it all the way to the Top 8. Now I had an extra year of experience, I thought I was unbeatable. So I went in there roaring to go, but you know what happened?"

"You… lost?"

Ritchie grinned bitterly, "Yup. Made it all the way to the Top 4 of the Johto Silver Conference this time, but I still got knocked out.

"Ouch…"

Ritchie chuckled weakly, "After that, wandered around refining my techniques while I tried my luck in Hoenn. We were 14 that year, and I heard you finally made it to your own Johto Conference." The red haired trainer screwed his eyes up tightly in pain, "Top 4 again. I still refused to give up. This time I hit Sinnoh. I was 15, I had 5 years of experience and I had a damned good team, I was sure I would finally break out of this losing streak but nooope. Top 4 again."

The red haired man waved another beer over that he rapidly gulped down as if trying to drown the pain, "I still refused to give up. I headed to Unova. Voila. Another Top 4. Arceus-dammit, I was getting really sick of that number. Meanwhile, I got news that a fellow Kanto trainer, ergo, you, made it all the way to the Lily of the Valley conference as well."

"I remember that one." Ash replied with a small smile, "I hit top 4, first time I ever ranked that high."

"Yeah. Trust me, after a while, that shiny ' _Top 4'_ thing starts to fade and you realize all that really means is that you failed to even qualify against the Elite Four." Ritchie deadpanned, "By then I was pretty much fed up with the whole deal. We were both 16 by then and I decided I needed to do something drastic before I completely lost it. I went all the way back to Kanto, while you started Unova."

Ash winced, "Top 8."

Ritchie giggled tipsily, "Top 4. Again."

"Arceus that must have sucked."

Ritchie made an agreeing noise, "At 17, we were literally just one year short of being full adults by then, but the entire time, nothing seemed to click. There always seemed to be that one last push missing and I had no idea how the fuck to go about finding it it."

"I know that feeling." Ash remarked quietly, "Always that small little bit niggling at the back of your mind, asking you what you don't quite have. What are you still missing?"

Ritchie grinned thinly, "Yup. That's the one. I had a feeling you were the same way." The red head swept of his cap in frustration and downed the rest of his mug, "When I left Celadon to start my journey, there were 8 of us. 8 bloody trainers, and that's not even counting at least 50 others from the other towns in Kanto. By the time I ended my second try at Kanto, I was one of the few left from my generation. The rest quit because they were like me. They weren't achieving anything, they were just paddling around in circles. And if you didn't win a Tournament or anything, all that really means is that you're just another adult slash hobo that's still stuck in a childish fantasy, playing games and depending on every battle to make a living instead of _at least_ earning a stable income or something like a perfectly respectable white collar worker." Ritchie shuddered slightly, "Arceus… I don't know how many times I thought of just doing the same as them."

"In my town, there were only two." Ash remarked quietly, "It was me and Gary Oak."

"He at least become a researcher didn't he?"

"Yeah."

"That's about as white collar as you can get without outright quitting the Battling scene." Ritchie commented with a sad grin, "Do you know how they announced me this morning? A participant at every Pokemon League or something?"

"Or something." Ash agreed quietly.

"It sounds great and all, but every time I hear that, all I hear is _'This dude is already 22. He's been in a goddamn conference every year and still HASN'T achieved anything. He doesn't have a job. He doesn't have a family. He doesn't have a girlfriend. He doesn't HAVE ANYTHING._ "

"You have your Pokemon." The brown haired trainer replied, his lips set in a stern line.

"Yeah, but to be fair, I think they were getting pretty sick of the whole _'hamster in a wheel'_ thing as well." Ritchie slouched into his chair and squeezed his eyes shut again, "Do you even know why I was keeping track of you?" He asked softly.

"Because I was one of the few trainers from your generation still around and trying?"

"Pretty much." Ritche murmured with a quiet resignation, "It just felt good I guess, knowing that there's still someone out there trying like I am. But then you disappeared somewhere around the time I was doing my second Hoenn attempt. I thought it was just another classic case of trainer burnout. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt even worse because even you dropped out already. But still I refused to quit. I kept trying."

He turned his watering eyes on Ash, "Then you re-appeared. After five years, I thought maybe you just found your motivation again. I thought I'd show a casual fag like you what fighting against someone who has never given up from the time he started his journey would be really like." Ritchie smiled thinly, "Obviously we both know what happened and I... I just lost it."

Ash set his empty mug down with a grimace.

"Where did you go, Ash?" Ritchie grabbed Ash by the jacket and pulled him close enough that Ash could literally see the desperation swirling in the other man's brown eyes, "What did you **find**?"

Ash couldn't look away, it was almost like he was seeing himself in the mirror.

"I went to Reborn." The brown haired trainer admitted, "It's… not on the map."

Ritchie leaned with even greater interest, "You mean the new region that wasn't part of the Coalition until a couple of months ago?"

"Yes…"

"So if I go there, I'll be as good as you?" Ritchie repeated with an expression of wild hope.

"You don't understand. Things weren't easy there." He tried again.

But it was all futile as Ritchie had already gotten up, "How do I get there, Ash?"

"Dammit, Ritchie," Ash growled, "If you go off there half assed like that, you **will** die."

"You made it out fine didn't you? I'm as good as you and you know it." The red haired Kanto trainer argued heatedly.

Ash's spine stiffened.

Then he slowly swivelled around until Ritchie was staring straight at him.

" **I made it out** _ **fine**_ **?"**

The red head cringed and took a step back at the unnaturally blank on Ash's face.

Ash simply smiled coldly, "Come with me for a moment, _old friend_." Ritchie yelped as an iron grip latched onto his shoulder.

All the strength he had built over the years he had journeyed was completely useless in the face of the grip forcing him to walk as Ash made a gesture to a table in the corner.

At the table, Corey simply smiled thinly, "And here I thought we'd have a nice touching talk before we all hugged it out in cloying sentimentality. Looks like I was wrong to hope after all."

Cynthia watched as the Gym Leader returned Crobat to its pokeball with a cold smirk and stalked out after Ash.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"Sit there." Ash muttered to Ritchie as the two of them finally reached an empty clearing somewhere outside the outskirts of Silver town, "And make sure you watch."

"Wha-whuh?" Ritchie blinked blankly as he realized that the two of them had a few spectators that he hadn't noticed earlier… and was that the Sinnoh Champion? What the hell?

"Titania." Ash barked out while Corey strutted over to the opposite of the field as he retrieved 6 pokeballs from his bag along with a….. gas mask?

The red head who had been watching the entire team from the sidelines merely quirked one eyebrow. Unsheathing her war blade, she plunged it into the ground with one smooth move when one giant pulsing eye in the middle of the hilt opened and swivelled around the area.

Making a sound that reminded Cynthia of an Aggron chewing on something, waves of psychic energy pulsed out from the swivelling eye of what was apparently an Aegislash and formed a transparent barrier around Ash and Corey.

"For someone who doesn't want to be a Champion, he sure as heck doesn't a problem with ordering **me** around." Titania muttered under her breath.

"What are the rules?" Corey asked stiffly.

Ash paused for a moment before smiling thinly, "The usual."

"Oh?"

"Come at me like you always do." Ash replied curtly.

"Gladly…" Corey smiled slickly, "Garbodor!"

A colossal mountain of heaving trash appeared on the field, its mere presence alone emanated a wave of sickly air that caused everyone's eyes to water.

"Gunk Shot!"

 **Play Linkin Park – What I've Done**

Without missing a beat, the mountain of trash heaved and shot a speeding bullet of poisonous waste directly at Ash. The ball of toxic poison was an instant away from popping Ash's skull into paste when a white flash appeared.

'Bron…Bronzong!" a wall of steel and anger blocked the shot as the bell shaped steel Pokémon hovered in with a threatening metallic screech before shooting a wave of colourful energy right back at Garbodor.

The slow trash Pokemon didn't even bother to dodge since it already knew it was too slow and took the attack head on before lunging forth, a tentacle covered in a reddish pink glowing aura shot out and struck the equally slow Bronzong squarely in the face.

"Gar!" the Waste Pokemon growled triumphantly as it felt its HP recovering from the Drain Punch before. The Bronzong faltered before it tried to return the attack but the Garbodor had already gotten close enough to entangle it in its tentacles before it launched a point blank Dark Pulse.

There was a massive explosion and the sound of screeching steel as Garbador continued to fire a series of rapid Dark Pulses that hammered away at the Bronzong.

Corey smiled thinly as the Bronzong reeled away from the super effective attacks.

He remembered it like it was yesterday, when a bedraggled and significantly younger Ash had crawled into his gym for the first time.

He remembered what he had said back then too, after he had crushed Ash's entire team mercilessly without taking a single attack.

'Just because you have a type advantage, it doesn't mean you will win. Lose all hope. Until the day you do, you will not win. Until the day you kill off your feelings, you will not rise. Until the day you learn how to observe and adapt, you will not conquer.'

Ash had looked at him with a broken expression and left the gym dejectedly.

He did not see the boy again for another month, and he had almost expected the stranger to give up training when he reappeared once more.

He had a stronger team, a more cohesive plan.

Corey promptly crushed him again.

"Bronzong, Protect. Earthquake." Ash's muttered orders knocked Corey back into the battle as the floating steel bell summoned a barrier that immediately blocked the next Dark Pulse long enough for it to drop straight to the ground with a massive crack, sending out massive pulses of energy and shattering the earth.

"GAR!" Garbodor cried out, having been practically face to face with the Bronzong, it had taken the full brunt of the Earthquake but his first Pokémon still refused to go down and Corey grinned as the angry Garbodor simply lashed out again with another Dark Pulse.

The Bronzong growled and glowed darkly a split second before the pulse of dark energy hit and Garbodor was knocked onto his back by a blast of energy when Bronzong's Payback activated in its face.

Immediately, Bronzong flew up and then smashed straight into the ground again to activate another Earthquake that Corey knew would sap the last of its health.

The Poison Gym Leader smiled and then calmly retrieved a gas mask from his bag as the Garbodor erupted with Aftermath.

Ash growled as he glanced around the field as Bronzong thumped to the ground weakly, too weak to even Levitate anymore after using the last of its strength to protect Ash from Garbodor's Aftermath.

It was corrupted by a sickly purple mist that settled onto the field.

"You did very well, Bronzong."

"zong..."

Ash returned the Pokemon to its ball with a grateful smile as he calmly retrieved his own gas mask.

Corey merely stood there, unruffled, perfectly serene and protected from the corrosive mist, "Are we done warming up?" He asked with a smile.

"Yeah." Ash returned the grin with one of his own, "Let's kick it up a notch."

Corey's smile widened as a Skuntank appeared next to him in a flash of white light.

A white flash appeared to Ash and before it had even completely finished forming, whatever Pokemon Ash was using had already fired off a Sludge Bomb.

Skuntank hissed and curled up around Corey, fired off a Sludge Bomb of its own that collided with the orb of toxic waste hurtling towards them. The moment the two orbs impacted, Skuntank hissed and shot off, its claws glowing red as it struck at the titanic centipede curling around Ash.

The claws hit the Scolipede's thick carapace and sparked hotly when the Scolipede retaliated with a loud hiss, rapidly jabbing with Poison Jab as Skuntank nimbly dodged and rolled away from the 6 feet tall nightmare of a Centipede.

Hissing angrily, Scolipede shot forwards with Bulldoze, rumbling and upturning the earth before slamming straight into Skuntank just as it landed. Before the Skuntank even landed, a red flash caught Skuntank and returned it to its Pokeball when a simultaneous flash of white released a roaring Nidoqueen.

The Nidoqueen landed directly on the squawking Scolipede and stomped down hard, preventing the agile insect Pokemon from going anywhere as it grabbed the Scolipede's massive pincers with its armoured paws.

The two titans were locked in a struggle of pure strength as the gigantic centipede snarled and hissed angrily, toxic dripping from its pincers as they slowly closed on the Nidoqueen's neck when the Nidoqueen let loose with an angry howl and punched Scolipede's directly in the face with a fist covered in flames.

Scolipede reeled back with a howl Nidoqueen rushed it again, the fire on its fist burned a deep purple from the corrosive mist around them, promising to do even more super effective damage to the thrashing centipede when a flash of red light hit Scolipede and Ash safely returned Scolipede to its Pokeball as a Vaporeon howled and blasted a torrent of corrupted water into Nidoqueen's midsection.

A split second before it hit, Nidoqueen roared and shot a bolt of thunder straight into the torrent of water, creating a blast of superheated steam explosion that almost smacked Vaporeon in the face when a red light struck it first.

As the swirling poisonous mist slowly settled again, Crobat's large leathery wings, wrapped protectively around the Poison Gym Leader slowly opened to reveal Corey who was amused to see that Ash had somehow completely avoided the explosion as well.

Not that he expected any less.

"Thanks Pede, Vaporeon, you both did extremely well. That Skuntank was a massive pain the last time I fought it and you were the only one I have that's fast enough to get rid of it without fainting from the all the poisoned mist." Ash murmured and smiled thinly when the pokeball shook lightly, signalling his good friend's appreciation, "You too Vaporeon. That Nidoqueen is an Arceus be-damned monster, and you took it out in one go."

Vaporeon's pokeball rocked happily.

Corey simply smirked.

The boy was getting better.

The two of them were already down 3 Pokemon each.

The first time they had fought, he had struggled to even take down **one**.

He remembered how the little idiot had kept _coming back to his bloody gym_ one defeat after another. No matter what he said, no matter how hard he crushed the boy, no matter how many tricks he used, Ash would just disappear for a week or two before coming back again.

A little wiser, and whole lot **stronger.**

It had reached the point where Corey was almost… amused. He fancied that the two of them had almost become... acquaintances after fighting each other so many times.

Or at least he would have if Solaris had not ordered him to commence the Tangrowth plan.

Corey shook his head… now was not the time to reminisce. It was time to bring out the heavy guns.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

Titania grinned as she tapped Ritchie's jaw with the tip of her blade, causing it to close with a click.

"I see you at least somewhat understand why Ash doesn't like it when people think they can just waltz into Reborn and come out stronger." Titania commented airily, "There are no referees where we come from. Battles are too fast and fluid for us to even think about giving orders because by the time your order reaches your pokemon, it's probably already dead."

"That… that's against the rules!"

Titania grinned harder, "Where we come from, battles are divided into three elements. How your Pokemon affects its opponent, how your Pokemon affects the Field and how your Pokemon affects the enemy Trainer. Together, all three make up what we call the _Meta._ The art of battling so to speak. And until you learn at least the basics of all three, you're going to have a pretty bad time there because **everything** is permitted, up to and including poisoning the field or targeting the enemy Trainer. The only **rules** you'll find there is dictated by your conscience, and let's just say that there's not a lot of that around Reborn. So if you went in thinking it would be a vacation, we'd find your dead and possibly violated corpse in a ditch somewhere within a week."

"Violated?" Ritchie squeaked as he clutched at his ass protectively.

She grunted to herself thoughtfully, "Actually scratch that. Things have changed a little; the remnants of Team Meteor's on the run and people aren't quite so desperate now that we have their scientists helping us to fix the water supply.. the electric supply... and just about every other thing that they broke in the first place." She pouted, "Granted, most of them are only doing it so they don't get executed off the bat, which I still think is perfectly reasonable, but it's something I guess."

"So I _won't_ die?"

Titania grinned mercilessly, messing with these oh-so-innocent and naïve trainers was… kinda fun. By the time she had met Ash in her gym, the slippery bastard was already one hell of a fighter. If someone had told her that he used to be one of these pansies who thought standing safe and nice on the side while they sedately and politely took turns to yell out orders was a battle, she'd probably laugh her guts out.

"I didn't say that. I said things weren't as bad as they used to be. Two weeks. I give you two weeks before we find your dead and possibly violated corpse in a ditch somewhere."

Ritchie squeaked again.

Titania glanced at Cynthia and smirked as she noted that the Sinnoh Champion was entirely too enraptured with the battle to even hear a word of anything she had said.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"Toxicroak, it's your turn!"

The poison frog appeared on the field, already running as it dashed straight at as with a Poison Jab, its lips twisted in a creepy smile as it sprung straight at the other trainer when it was easily deflected by a Medicham that promptly Zen Headbutted the Toxicroak away from them.

Toxicroak skidded to a stop on the other side of the field and winced when the poisonous mist settled on its wounds and slowly seeped in.

"Croak!" The Toxicroak slowly got up again as the poisonous mist healed him rapidly and bounced on the balls of its feet with a taunting smirk as Medicham dropped to one knee, its skin slowly turning purple from merely being in the corrosive mist.

"End it fast, Medicham. You won't last long in here." Ash murmured encouragingly.

"Cham." The medicham nodded and then shot off with incredible speed.

"Cham!" A wave of coloured energy wove through the air towards Toxicroak when it faded away in fuzzy image before Sneaking up behind Medicham and unleashing a flurry of punches that the Meditate Pokemon evaded with disturbing ease. The two of them began to exchange a series of rapid fire blows like master Martial Artists.

Toxicroak endured the hits by virtue of its constantly regenerating Dry Skin, but Medicham slowly lost ground despites massive type advantage as the increased activity caused it to breathe in more and more poison.

The result became obvious when the Medicham slipped, its knees giving out as its vision wavered and Toxicroak gleefully took the advantage, fully intent on pounding the Medicham's head into paste when the Medicham suddenly surged.

The frog's eyes went wide when it realized that the Medicham had been feinting, shortly before it thought no more because the Meditate Pokemon had placed a palm on its chest. Toxicroak looked down blankly for a moment before a red light recalled him, a second before Medicham could pump the arrogant bitch of a regenerating frog full of psychic energy.

Sighing in relief, Medicham wavered in place, almost desperate to just sink to its knees and go to sleep despite the poison, but Corey had already summoned his next Pokemon. Medicham swallowed nervously as a nearly 7 feet tall Dragalge loomed over him before unleashing a torrent of water with Hydro Pump that swept the entire field.

Medicham leapt straight up into the sky not a moment too soon before the purplish hissing water surged like a tidal wave before unleashing a High Jump Kick that smashed straight into the part Poison, part dragon type pokemon's face.

The Meditate Pokemon swallowed thickly again as the Dragalge's furious eyes landed square on the tiny thing trying to scratch its skin and blasted another wave of poisonous water straight at Medicham.

Bouncing off the Dragalge's snout like an acrobat, Medicham curled up into a ball before the tidal wave of surged around him.

The nearly 3 metre tall floating dragon snorted triumphantly when Medicham burst through the jet of water, a fragile looking bubble around it that had cracked severely. It had tried to Protect itself, but even that had barely been enough as patches of melted and burned skin could be seen on the small and agile Pokemon. Fiercely fighting through the water with wavering vision, Medicham slammed both hands on Dragalge's skull and then headbutting the Dragon with its strongest Zen Head butt.

Before the Medicham could land on the ground, Ash skidded to a stop beneath Medicham and scooped it out of the air, ignoring the poison slowly melting his new clothes and burning his skin, the dark haired trainer grimly rolled away from the thrashing and howling Dragalge flinched from the attack.

The floating Pokemon slowly recovered and proceeded to square in on Ash with a vengeance when a massive Arcanine appeared and roared, blasting out a plume of pure fire that instantly heated the arena to unbearable levels.

Corey smiled grimly.

"Now that's a memory I didn't want to see ever again." The Poison Gym Leader muttered under his breath as the Arcanine snorted angrily next to Ash, chuffing as the corrosive mist poisoned him. .

"I thought you'd appreciate the irony." Ash grinned under the mask.

The large fiery canine merely growled even deeper, its hackles rising as its eyes landed on Corey while Dragalge hovered beside him, snorting dismissively as it began to shoot streams of poison at the massive canine who dodged it with its superior speed.

The violet haired Gym Leader sighed under his breath, "This whole battle brings back memories. Was there a reason why you purposely picked the exact same Pokémon you used to beat me the first time around?"

"Not really." Ash admitted, his voice strangely muffled through the gas mask as fire and poison flared explosively all around them, "I just couldn't be bothered to think of a new strategy." His eyes twinkled mischievously though Corey couldn't see it, "Besides, we fought really hard then didn't we?"

"Yeah…" Corey conceded soberly.

The last time he had seen that Arcanine, a mere Growlith at the time, in battle, it had been shortly after Ash had defeated an entire squad of mind controlled policemen before chasing him down to the Gym after his identity as a high ranking member of Team Meteor had been revealed.

Arcanine growled as it leapt onto the Dragalge's back and clamped down with its massive fangs, puncturing through even the Dragon's thick hide and shaking the squealing Dragalge like a wet rag. The Dragon Pokemon beneath him howled and screamed before it glowed a deep purple and thrashed in Outrage, but the Arcanine hung on like a stubborn leech.

It ignored that blasts of draconic energy that smashed into its underside and growled, its fangs heating up as he buried them deeper into Dragalge's hide as his own body glowed a bright orange.

Outrage clashed against Incinerate, the globe of destructive energy slowly pulsing outwards when the corrosive mist itself combusted, erupting and adding to the dangerously unstable mix. There was a moment of absolute silence before the entire thing exploded violently, completely ripping through the barrier with a massive sound wave.

Corey was violently hurled on to the ground as the entire field erupted violently, the entire reason he hadn't been instantly knocked was due to Crobat swooping down to protect him when he saw a shadow charging through the smoke. Valiantly Crobat swung its Razor sharp wings out to stop whatever was coming but the Champion of Reborn deflected the wing with a steely shield before Corey found the blade of a curved sword levelled at his unprotected throat.

Ash was gasping raggedly, his clothes were essentially destroyed and his skin was burnt badly, but his eyes still gleamed with determination.

Crobat's sharp wings were barely an inch from his neck, but it was still an inch too short as Ash's Aegislash poked deeper into his carotid artery.

Corey smiled with resignation.

"Observe, Adapt and Conquer... huh?"

Ash smiled thinly, "Those were the first words you ever said to me after you beat the first time after all."

Corey slowly got on one knee.

"And that… is why I will acknowledge no other." He murmured quietly.

Grunting, Ash stabbed his Aegislash, shaped like a curved katana into the ground and stiffly held out one hand to the kneeling man.

"What? Not going to punch me this time?" Corey asked with a grin.

"If I did that. I'd probably faint." Ash admitted serenely, "Because HOLYFUKINGSHIT everything… hurts."

Corey grinned and then he accepted the outstretched arm.

 ******4 years ago*******

He remembered that day as if it was still yesterday.

He remembered looking down on the Lapis Ward from the top of the Beryl Bridge and savoring the release he expected.

It was the most succulent idea he had in years, and he almost enjoyed the strange sense of freedom he felt after losing to that particularly tenacious bastard, after releasing all his Pokemon.

He smiled as he heard the heavy footsteps of someone running up the Beryl Bridge, and his expectation was not betrayed as a heaving and sweating brown haired boy appeared at the top of the stairs.

"So… Ash. What is it you want to know?"

The brown haired boy tried to signal that he was too outbreath to reply, but Corey wasn't paying any attention.

"Why I joined Meteor?" Corey chuckled humourlessly, "There was a ring a long time ago. A brilliant ruby ring I scored from a collector. I'm not one for jewellery, but it was the most dazzling ring I had ever seen. So I decided that I would introduce that ring to what true beauty really was."

Corey sucked in a deep breath of the refreshing air at the top of the bridge, "I gave it to my life's one true love in engagement. It was not long after we were married that my wife became pregnant. We were both ecstatic. Back then I knew happiness…. But I was naïve." Corey closed his eyes in pain, "My wife did not survive Heather's birth. A machine failure I was told… a technical error… But when the doctor treating her refused to relinquish her ring, I grew suspicious. Was she murdered for it I wonder?"

"It was only later that I found out that it was Team Meteor. They had sent that doctor to steal the ring… but I was desperate. I **needed** to cling on to her memory, the only part of her I had left. As long as Team Meteor returned the ring to me… I would do their bidding happily so long as I could keep the ring. I was selfish." Corey admitted freely, "I placed my desire for my wife above that of Heather. And now, because of it, she's gone. My own daughter hates me like the criminal I am. Fitting I suppose."

"Ash…." Corey stepped closer to the edge of the bridge, "Heather has the ring now and Team Meteor wants it back. Please watch over her for me. I no longer have the right to call myself her daughter…"

The older man sighed quietly, "My love… I'm coming to see you now."

"Are you…." Ash gasped breathlessly, "Are you done?"

Corey blinked slowly, "Yes?"

"Good."

"What?"

"Clench your teeth."

" _What?"_

Ash stalked closer and proceeded to punch the idiot hanging off the side of the bridge with all the strength he had built over the years.

The Violet haired Gym Leader reeled in pain before Ash grabbed his lapel and threw him onto the ground bodily before slumping down next a dazed Corey with a heavy sigh.

"You punched me!"

"Yes. I do believe we've established that." Ash noted dryly.

"You couldn't do it a little earlier? I almost fell off the bridge!"

Ash stared at him, and Corey got the impression that the trainer, an alien to this land, was actually getting a _little_ fed up with the way things were done around here.

"To be fair, you're the first person I've ever punched. Intentionally at least." Ash remarked flatly, his patience had long since run completely dry, "So I didn't want to punch you until you were done blabbing your head off. Didn't want you biting your tongue off after all. That would be as painful as falling off a bridge I think."

He got up and dragged a bruised Corey up easily despite their difference in sizes and slammed his forehead on the Gym Leader's, "Now that we've gotten all that unpleasantness aside…. What. The. Actual. Fuck. Did you think you were doing?"

"I was… committing suicide?"

"You mean running away from everything like a coward."

"Why wouldn't I?" Corey railed angrily, "I've lost everything in my life, no thanks to you!"

"Do you **want** me to punch you again?" Ash snorted angrily, "You have an Arceus be damned daughter out there, lost and alone. You want to lose everything? DO IT AFTER YOU'VE APOLOGIZED TO HER AND EXPLAINED TO HER WHY YOU'RE SUCH A DAMNED PRICK!"

"But…"

"But nothing!" Ash roared, "I don't have a dad, all I have is a mother, so I can't and won't say that I can understand Heather, but what do you wanna know what I think? I think that I miss her so much I'll do damn near everything to go back to her right now. Up to and including throwing you off this bloody bridge **myself** if it'll help. But it won't. So I'll just have to do the next best thing and make sure that I can still face her when I finally go back." The dark haired trainer scoffed angrily, his eyes a little wild around the edges, "And here you are wanting to just go and meet your wife?"

He threw Corey back down to the ground with an irate growl, "Do you think she's going to be _happy_ with EVERYTHING you've done? With how you've treated Heather, the precious daughter she died giving birth to, all because you wanted her to learn how _hopeless_ the world was?"

"No…" Corey murmured brokenly.

"Hell, you'd probably be lucky if she didn't slap you so hard you came back to life."

The gym leader chuckled sadly, "That she would."

Ash groaned as he slowly slide on his backside, "Arceus damn it all… is it really so hard to just go tell your daughter that straight up admit to her that you were a cowardly prick that hurt her instead of protected her because you were too afraid of being hurt yourself?"

Corey winced, "You…. Has anyone ever told you that you're a little too blunt for your own good?"

Ash stared at him perplexedly, "To be fair, everyone here is too busy doing all that depressing posturing they love so much that I find trying to be gentle with them _just doesn't get through the damned thick plates they call a skull._ And don't even get me started on Alice. Arceus…" The dark haired boy ranted under his breath.

"Did that dumb-wad really just try to throw himself off the Beryl Bridge?" A shrill and piercing voice rang through the air, prompting Ash to bury his face in his hands and groan.

"And here comes the idiot of the year." He muttered to himself under his breath as a green haired boy came strutting up the bridge, "To think I came all the way up here just to challenge him, only to find out that the revered Corey is actually a coward that tries to commit suicide every time someone beats him."

Corey winced as the green haired boy laughed with that whiny, ill-mannered way he had.

"Shut up Fern. No one wants to hear your opinion." Ash muttered as he wearily got up again.

"Eh, you probably think I'm heartless yeah?" Fern shrugged, "It's not like I care whether or not you like me. I just see it as natural selection, ya know? If he's weak enough to do something so stupid over one silly loss, he's not worth my time."

"Of course he's not." Ash agreed blandly before squinting in the distance, "Wait, what's that?"

"Hmmm?" Fern looked around and noticed the swirling plume of smoke in the distance, "What's that… It looks a fire over in the North Obsidin Ward."

"Yup. Why don't you go and find out?"

Corey watched as Ash very calmly booted the idiot off the bridge.

"Did you…" He quirked one eyebrow as Ash began to pick his nose with a bored expression, "What happened to the part about _'making sure you can still face your mom_ '?"

"He was being annoying." Ash shrugged before holding up his thumb and pointer finger really close together, "And I'm _this_ close to just going berserk and shanking the next person who tries give me any more shit."

"…. You're surprisingly brutal. You know that right?"

Ash stuck his tongue out at Corey just as a Skarmory appeared over the bridge, carrying a screaming Fern before roughly dropping him onto the roof of the Pokemon Center of Jasper Ward.

"Was… was that Skarmory there the entire time?!"

"Did you really think I was going to just punch you off a bridge?"

"… Actually... I did."

"Sorry Corey." Ash grinned, "I'm not quite _that_ merciful. You have a lot of work to do before I let you get to go and relax like that. Starting with us finding your daughter and you grovelling to her until she stops trying to stab you."

"You're not brutal. You're a monster."

"Don't push it. I might just help her shank you."

 ******Rippling Eclipse End******


	3. Ignite the Fire Within

**Rippling Eclipse Chapter 3**

 **Ignite the Fire Within - Valor**

Disclaimer: All Pokémon characters used belong to the Pokémon Company, a Japanese consortium between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Furthermore, all other characters used are either of my own creation and thus are not meant to resemble anyone in real life. This includes creations used from other creators with their authorization. Thank you Amethyst.

 ******** **Rippling Eclipse ******

 **Soundtrack List**

Zack Hemsey – See what I've become (1)

Arn Andersson – Shards of Light (2)

 ******** **Rippling Eclipse ******

"Ash…."

The tall man plunging into a wall of leafy greens ahead of the gasping light green haired woman barely glanced back for a moment, "Mmm?" He hummed questioningly in return, still a little too focused on the undergrowth around them to reply.

Julia gasped as she held one hand to her side, "Hold up will you?"

The man ran one hand through his dark hair as he slowed down enough for Julia to catch up and gave her a cocky grin, "For a Gym Leader, you're pretty out of a shape."

"Fuck you." Julia muttered between heavy gasps, "Even Gym Leaders don't go meandering around the forest so early in the morning."

"It's 11 am." Ash deadpanned, "Pretty sure that doesn't qualify as _'early in the morning'_ anymore."

"Yeah well, you ran off in a real hurry after your match before I could even finish yawning. Hell, the poor guy you were fighting didn't even have time to understand how the fuck you managed to slap his whole team out of the arena with a Rattata." Julia grumbled under her breath as she clutched her tummy with a groan, "Ugh. All these climbing before I even had breakfast makes my guts go all queasy. Why are you even in such a rush?"

"Don't worry, we're nearly there." Ash bore the woman's non-stop complaining with an amicable grin.

Julia squinted at him. His broad shoulders were heaving from the exertion and sweat had dampened the simple black shirt his friends had bought for him. Though the new heavy looking cloak that was draped over his left shoulder probably didn't help his situation considering the murky lowland Johto temperatures. A pair of sturdy steel lined boots and a pair jean rounded off his outfit, designed for travelling in almost any weather and the hazards of the road.

It was eerily similar to what he usually wore in Reborn, though Julia guessed he had simply got used to what was comfortable for him.

"Do you even know where you're going?" she questioned him curiously.

"Of course I do. I never get lost."

On his head, Pikachu burst out into a gut busting laugh.

Ash's left brow twitched as he jabbed Pikachu off his perch.

"You want to say that again so I can record it?" Julia retorted as an indignant Pikachu nimbly climbed up her shoulder instead, her expression a mix of amusement and long suffering, "Then the next time someone asks me what's the funniest joke I've ever heard, I can just play it back for them to hear."

"Okay… so I never _unintentionally_ getlost."

Pikachu twitched before laughing even harder while Julia merely gave him a knowing look.

"Whatever." Ash muttered as he finally broke through the entangled wall of ivy and trees with a triumphant crow and dug around in his bag for six poke balls.

Julia looked around the clearing that the man had apparently found with muted awe.

Somehow, the idiot had managed to discover a full-fledged lake, ringed by a thick forest, right in the middle of Silver town. Save for a patch of burnt and threshed ground which she presumed was the location of the battle he had had with Corey the night before, the entire lake was crystal clear and she could see a multitude of water Pokémon leaping and playing in the shallows of the lake while a gentle breeze blew lazily and caused the tall grass to billow in waves.

She didn't even bother to ask him how he had managed to find a place like this.

His ability to randomly stumble on the weirdest places at the most random of times was practically legendary by now though she hadn't actually seen it in person.

Corey's daily complaints were more than enough for her.

There were a flash of six lights as some familiar Pokémon emerged from the lights.

Bronzong, metal plating cracked and burnt from several point blank Dark Pulses, hovered unsteadily, a Vaporeon, her dorsal fins ruffled and a little torn, a titanic Scolipede, its heavy shell armour cracked and burnt in places chittered tiredly as a Medicham got into a meditative position as best as it could without agitating all the burnt patches of skin on her body while an Arcanine, the most injured of the five, gingerly padded the grass beneath him down with his massive paws before carefully hunching down, the fur on his tummy was heavily burnt and blood could still be seen dripping from the fire Pokémon's lips.

The sixth Pokémon was a Blissey that Ash patted with affection before he handed her a small capsule. The nurse Pokémon made a happy sound as it nuzzled against Ash's hand before opening the capsule he had given her to reveal a well-worn container meticulously filled and with berries of almost every time.

Julia merely quirked one eyebrow as Ash wordlessly got his cloak out of the way and rolled up his sleeves and got to work with his Blissey, selecting some orange and green berries before grinding them into paste, when something tugged at her pant legs. Looking down, she grinned at the tottering little yellow rat as he held up a cloth wrapped package that was about as large he was.

Keeping an eye on the slender black haired man as he and Blissey start making some sort of salve with a combination of Rawst and Pecha berries from Ash's stock, Julia carefully relieved Pikachu of his burden and unwrapped it curiously, making a small sound of surprise as she realized it was a pack of sandwiches.

Apparently the man had had time to make something to eat before he snuck out of his apartment.

"Oi, you sure I can eat all of these?"

The man whose stubbornness was practically the stuff of legends in her continent merely waved one hand dismissively as he focused on helping Blissey carefully mix the grinded berries with some white, milky substance from her eggs every few stirs.

Julia possessively hugged the sandwiches to her chest, "Don't complain to me when you get hungry alright!? You're the one that gave me your breakfast willingly!"

"That was my lunch actually." Ash replied dryly. Two dark reddish brown eyes slid over to her with an impudent quirk of the brow before Ash lazily popped a Peppa berry into his mouth with a smirk before returning to the task at hand.

Popping a sandwich into her mouth, Julia grinned widely as she savoured the mix of mustard and ham before proceeding to shamelessly chow down on what was supposed to be Ash's lunch, though she at least remembered to pass one to a delighted Pikachu who promptly began nibbling on the sandwich while he was perched on her shoulder.

By the time she was finished, the raven haired trainer and his Blissey had already quickly and efficiently applied the paste to most of his injured Pokémon. The trainer from Pallet town was now carefully bandaging Vaporeon's back with a light smile, his lips moving almost silently. But Julia knew he was probably telling his Pokémon how proud he was of them if the way the Eevee evolution vacillated between preening and gazing up at him with pure adoration was any indication.

"You should just take him to a Poke Centre." Julia suggested with a muffled tone, "Actually, you should've taken ALL of them to a Pokémon Centre. No reason to let them hurt any longer than necessary."

Ash wrinkled his nose as he surveyed his injured team with a reluctant smile, "Probably." He agreed in a low baritone, "Unless it's urgent, I prefer to let them heal normally though. It helps in the long run, builds their resistances and strengths a lot more effectively than just stuffing them into a Poke ball for Nurse Joy to instantly heal."

Patting Vaporeon's rump with a smile, Ash gestured silently to the lake while Arcanine padded over to Julia and collapsed on her lap with great big adorable doggy smile that contrasted with his massive fangs and hot breaths, either begging for a petting or a sandwich.

Knowing the greedy Arcanine, probably both.

Relenting with a groan, Julia fed him one of the sandwiches and watched mournfully as the comparatively tiny piece of bread and meat disappeared down Arcanine's gullet. The huge puppy of an Arcanine yipped happily before nuzzling her so hard that she was bowled over, prompting Pikachu to make an unhappy noise at being dislodged from his perch.

The indignant Pikachu reflexively let out a bolt of electricity at the 6 foot tall puppy which Arcanine proceeded to ignore handily by rolling onto his back, legs kicking in the air as it begged for a good rubbing.

Ash for his part merely smiled gently as all his Pokémon drifted away to rest or play with all the other wild Pokémon around them….

Or at least he thought they were.

Those Rattatas didn't look like they enjoyed being chased by a drooling Scolipede very much.

He doubted Pede would actually eat them though. Scolipedes in general were carnivores but this one preferred his meat a little tougher, and a lot more… fermented.

Finding a comfortable spot by the edge of the lake, he patted Blissey one last time and let her wander off as well before lying down flat on his back, one hand laid across his eyes to block out the sun when he felt a light weight settle down on his tummy.

His lips curled upwards as he automatically reached down to scratch that one special spot below Pikachu's fluffy cheeks. Said electric mouse Pokémon promptly melted into a pile of contented yellow goo and purred happily as he heard the sound of rustling grass.

The raven haired man yawned and cracked one eye open to glance at the red headed trainer who was gingerly making his way through the tall grass, one hand idly switching between scratching a Pikachu between the ears or its cheeks, "Sup. Feeling better today?"

"Just a minor headache." Ritchie admitted with a half grin as he took a seat next to the other trainer who was lounging on the side of a beautiful lake surrounded by thick trees.

The trainer from Frodomar watched Ash hum agreeably, "This actually reminds me of something."

"Hmmm?"

"I wasn't really thinking right yesterday," Ritchie winced as he felt his head throb again, "but we bumped into each other somewhere in the Whirl Islands in Johto didn't we? Bumped into you on a cliff overlooking a lake like this in that area."

"Yep." Ash nodded to himself absent-mindedly, "I remembered last night, but I didn't feel like correcting you. Mostly because I figured you would be too drunk to bother about the little details anyway."

"Yeah…." Ritchie sighed as he shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly as he looked around the forest with a downcast expression, "I was taking a short break from my Hoenn run at the time I think. I distinctly remember thinking that catching a legitimate Legendary might help my chances at winning and followed some clues about a Lugia until I reached Whirl Islands."

Behind him, Ash was still watching the surface of the lake when a sleek head with blue markings attached to a slim, long white neck slowly rose from the surface with a quiet coo. It cast its eyes around the shore before noticing Ash had already seen him and was currently rubbing his temples with an exasperated expression.

"Sometimes I think about Silver you know. Wonder the little guy is doing right now…" Ritchie said with a nostalgic smile.

The Pokémon swiftly swam through the water before lunging at Ash who only had time to glance at Ritchie who was still talking to himself a little bit away while Pikachu quickly made a quick exit not a second too soon as the Pokémon essentially bashed Ash in the stomach in its excitement.

From her seat under the tree, Julia stared uncomprehendingly as a smallish _Lugia_ barrelled into Ash like a dump truck.

Releasing a pained smile, Ash affectionately rubbed the excited Lugia currently nuzzling his stomach for all he was worth, its body half way out of the water.

"Where's your mom?" Ash whispered quietly in his usual low and hoarse tone.

The Lugia's neck undulated in pleasure from the rubbing as its eyes sparkled mischievously.

"Ah… you ran away again didn't you?"

The Lugia cooed, unrepentantly proud when Pikachu leapt back onto Ash's shoulder with a chirped greeting.

The young Legendary blinked slowly for a moment before it proceeded to lunge again, this time at Pikachu.

' _Big Brother!'_ A loud, happy, childlike voice reverberated in his head as the Lugia, prompting Ash to grin. Watching someone else get bowled over like that was significantly more amusing when he wasn't the one getting bowled over.

"Did you ever bump into that Lugia again, Ash?" Ritchie asked, with a misty look in his eyes as he gazed in the opposite direction of Ash.

"A few times." The raven haired trainer admitted with a crooked smile as he glanced at the other trainer who was still busy reminiscing, "He's grown up to be a pretty playful guy who has a habit of running away from his stressed mother, randomly teleporting into every large body of water he can find just so he can scare the Pokémon he finds there, each time he gets bored."

Lugia turned back, leaving a thoroughly nuzzled and flattened Pikachu gasping for breath on the ground, and gave Ash a few more playful licks good bye before going back to the water with a quiet splash.

Ritchie turned back around and grinned wryly just in time to see the tip of a white tail slither into the lake, "Speaking of large bodies of water, I didn't notice yesterday on account of how drunk I was, but how the hell did you find a forest and a lake in the middle of Silver town?"

The green haired girl who was sitting under a tree nearby chuckled dryly, startling Ritchie since he hadn't even noticed her there until she made a noise.

Ritchie stared at the green haired girl and the familiar looking Arcanine that was snoozing next to her, its belly bandaged heavily, and went a slight pink colour before blurting out, "MayIhaveyourname?"

The girl tilted her head innocently as she happily ran one hand through Arcanine's thick carpet-like orange and black striped fur, "It's Julia. Are you Ash's friend?"

"I think so?" The red headed man looked away shyly while Ash gruffly snorted with amusement, "Are you… with Ash?"

"In a manner of speaking." Julia remarked cheerfully, "I'm supposed to make sure he doesn't go around wandering and looking for danger, Legendary Pokémon included. Obviously didn't work…" Julia muttered with a pointed look at Ash who simply shrugged as if to say that it wasn't his fault that Legendary Pokémon seemed to enjoy messing with him as he nonchalantly brushed Pikachu's fur back down, "but at least he's still in town. I think. Maybe?" the peppy green haired girl concluded to herself.

"I... I guess so?" Ritchie coughed awkwardly, "But don't you think this is a rather nice place to rest and everything?"

Julia, dressed in a disturbingly short pink skirt and a tight yellow blouse that did strange things to Ritchie's guts, looked around the peaceful area pointedly.

"I suppose?" She said uncertainly and pouted, "It's… a bit boring though."

"Boring?" Ritchie echoed blankly before nodding hurriedly, "Yeah I guess. It's just an empty space and some water. Would be nice if there was some flowers right?"

At the edge of the water, Ash rolled his eyes as Pikachu grumpily climbed onto his shoulders, licking that one stubborn patch of fur that just wouldn't lie down. Ash grinned as he scratched Pikachu under the chin with one finger.

"Flowers?" Julia giggled, "No, no. It'd be even better if there were stuff going boom!"

"What."

She glanced at Ash with an uncharacteristically timid expression that Ash knew was perfectly fake, "Hey, Master Ketchum… do you mind if I…"

"No." the dark haired man cut her off dryly.

"But I haven't even finished my question!"

"It doesn't matter. I already know what you want to do." Ash gravelly replied with an amused grin, "And I don't think that releasing your Pokémon just so that they can blow up, probably setting the forest on fire in the process, is a very good idea."

"But I think it's a _great_ idea!" Julia protested childishly.

"Didn't Titania already tell you that you're forbidden from blowing anything else up until you get back to Reborn after the four of you had to pay for the damage to our hotel room?"

"I wasn't the one that did that! She kicked the door in herself!"

Ash quirked one disbelieving eyebrow at her.

"Okay… so I helped blow the frame up before she kicked the door in but just a little!"

"I'm not even sure how you can blow up a door _'just a little._ '." Ash muttered under his breath.

"Muu…" Julia wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Ash.

"Also. If the two of you want to flirt, please do it somewhere else. Specifically, somewhere where I can't hear whatever the two of you are doing."

"Flirt?" Julia tilted her head questioningly while Ritchie went as red as a burned tomato, "But I wasn't flirting, we were just talking." Her light green eyes turned onto Ritchie, "Right?"

Ash grinned and was about to say something else when Ritchie hurriedly clapped his hands on the taller man's mouth, "Yes! Yes we were! Just talking that is!"

The Pikachu on Ash's tummy snuffled and glared indignantly at Ritchie, losing a light tendril of electricity at the red head for jostling his bed, causing Ritchie to yelp and fall back as his fingers were shocked. Pikachu smirked at Ritchie's muttered cursing before it curled back up into a ball and went back to his nap.

" _Of course_ you were." Ash yawned lazily, "So? Still feel like going to Reborn to get _stronger_?"

"Maybe not without some prior preparations first." Ritchie commented hesitantly, "I was thinking you could help with that?"

One lone reddish brown eye cracked open under the curtain of untidy and spiky jet black hair as a smile slowly spread on his lips, "What did you have in mind?"

"I'm… not sure really." Ritchie admitted, "It feels like there's a whole world of things I need to know after our match, though it really only hit me after I watched your battle with that poison guy."

Ash shot up with a wide grin, "What say we go through a video recording of our match first? There're are some things I think you can work on starting from there before we work our way up."

Ritchie stared at the enthusiastic trainer as he pulled out a PokeNav and began fiddling with it. He had actually expected Ash to just laugh off his request and tell him to go and learn by experience. Instead, the enthusiastic black haired trainer had not only accepted, it almost seemed like the guy had been planning lessons or something.

Feeling the other guy's stare, Ash looked up with an expression of innocent confusion.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He squinted at Ritchie suspiciously, "You're not falling for me are you? Because you were flirting with Julia not even ten minutes ago."

"How the hell does staring at you equate to falling for you!?"

"Oh." Ash nodded with some relief, "That's better then. I was wondering if I needed to get some protection for my backside."

"Die. Seriously. Just die."

"Now that's not very nice of you." Ash pouted, "How am I supposed to teach you anything if you keep telling me to die?"

"Ah. This guy is an idiot that cannot be saved anymore."

"Glad you noticed." Julia muttered from her spot under her tree.

From his perch on Ash's shoulder, Pikachu snickered with amusement while Ash glowered at Ritchie and Julia.

"Suddenly I feel like just going to sleep and ignoring all of you." Ash pouted childishly. He poked Pikachu's soft, furry tummy, "You too. Traitor."

Pikachu poked his tiny tongue out at his trainer and then quickly scampering away before Ash could grab him.

Ash dropped to his knees, "Why?! Why don't my Pokémon respect me at all?! Is there NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD?!"

Grinning at the trainer and antics, Ritchie shook his head and decided to take pity on the moping Ash, "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Can we get on to whatever it is you have planned?"

"That totally wasn't sincere at all." Ash muttered under his breath as he hunkered down next to Ritchie, "But I'll take what I can get."

 **(1)**

The red head trainer quirked one eyebrow in interest as Ash offered to him the PokeNav as their match played out on the smallish screen, "Okay. So what am I supposed to be seeing here?"

In response, Ash rewinded the match back to the period right before Rattata got hit by Cruise's **Stone Edge** and adopted a lecturing pose. Ritchie could almost imagine that there was a white board next to him, "We start here. The basics, which essentially means understanding your Pokémon first and foremost." He pointed at the way his Rattata hunched over in slow motion.

"Rattata in general have great speed, however this is offset by their less than stellar damage and endurance. In any other situation, even though he's trained for endurance, your Tyrannitar's **Stone Edge** would have knocked him out instantly. Therefore, the question here is how did Rattata minimize the damage dealt to him enough so that his **Counter** would still pack a punch and not lose consciousness in the process?" He pointed at the way Rattata slowly edged his hunched over body so that the rocks, hurtling at him in slow motion, "From this, we can clearly see that he hunched over so that he could take advantage of his smaller size, however that wouldn't be anywhere enough to stop the damage, so can you tell me why?"

Squinting at the video, Ritchie re-winded the video again and again before offering a hesitant answer, "He turned around to make sure that any rocks that hit him would hit non-vital areas?" Ritchie frowned as he stared at the screen intensely, "The rocks barely clipped his side. He made sure that none of them hit his head or his legs. One hit his tail though."

"That's part of it yes." Ash nodded with a wide, approving grin, "But you're not looking at the whole picture yet. Look at the shape of the rocks. They way they're shot at him makes sure that the brunt of the impact lies at the sharpest point. Rattata knows that, so he allowed the sides of the rocks where the momentum would be lowest, minimizing any damage done."

"And the subsequent **Counter** was just the cherry on top of the cake."

Ritchie frowned, "You didn't order Rattata to do anything though. It sort of knew anyway."

Ash merely quirked one eyebrow at his friend, "Are you asking **'Why'** or ' **How'**?"

"Both?"

"The How is easy." Ash admitted, "It's a routine I developed in Reborn. Most of my active Pokémon are trained to recognize the situation they're in and all possible responses to it, tailored to their specific abilities and skills. This was after I realized that shouting orders was a little too slow to win a battle there. Rattata has some experience in routines, but only in one or two specific ones designed for something a lot bigger and stronger than him."

"So… what you're saying is that if I had sent out a Ghost type or something that could null his **Counter** , your Rattata was basically sunk?"

"I would at least have had to manually give him orders to prevent him from getting an instant KO." Ash allowed nonchalantly.

"That… makes sense I guess… And the _'Why_ '?"

The dark haired trainer shrugged, "Like I said. Shouting orders was a little too slow. I can even show you a great example if you wish." He pulled up another recording of a battle between two trainers Ritchie didn't recognize with two Pokémon out. One was a bipedal Pokémon with a turtle like head and covered in heavy grey plates shaped like an orb while the other was twice as tall as the Golem, played in acidic purple armour and disturbingly sharp spikes.

"The people fighting and the Pokémon involved are irrelevant." Ash commented when he noticed Ritchie's expression of confusion, "It's the moves they use that I want you to see."

The video played out about as well as Ritchie had expected, "The first guy orders an attack, but the second one almost instantly orders his Nidoking to **Counter** it. The first guy hears it, and mid attack, he gets his Pokémon to abort and use something else…. I don't really see the problem. That's standard tactics amongst trainers of my level." He admitted.

"Don't worry about it. That simply means you already have an instinctual grasp of the _How_ but not the _Why_ , which is what we're about to rectify." Ash re-winded and slowed down the video again to almost glacier levels, placing one finger on the timer bar at the bottom of the screen, "It takes the first trainer 0.8 seconds to yell out an order and reach the Golem, but you can tell that the Golem only understood the order to use **Earthquake** 0.2 seconds later by the way his fingers twitch for a total of 1.0 second."

Ash murmured, his finger moving with the bar, "0.7 seconds later, Nidoking's order to **Counter** the **Earthquake** comes. It takes him 0.5 seconds to understand and react. **Counter** is activated within 0.2 seconds. Within that time span of 1.4 seconds, the Golem has just only started to gather his energy to use **Earthquake**. If left alone, it will take him a further 1.6 seconds to use it and promptly get slapped out of the field with his own attack. The first trainer realizes this and changes the order into a **Rock Polish** instead, obviously intending on upping Golem's speed and take advantage of the fact that the Nidoking is currently a sitting duck until he lets go of his **Counter**."

"It took another 1.0 second for Golem to receive, understand and execute the order. But it is enough. There was still 0.1 seconds left before it became too late." Ritchie watched the video with an almost mesmerized fascination as the raven haired trainer next to him broke down and analysed every possible move with an unnervingly clinical tone.

"Golem transfers the power he has gathered into **Rock Polish** just in time with no ill effect to himself whatsoever. The Nidoking is left standing there for the next 2 seconds. If he cancels **Counter** early, he will hurt himself. If he doesn't, Golem's enhanced speed will ensure whatever attack he uses when the **Counter** drops will hit Nidoking straight in the face before he can recover. Within the space of 5 seconds, the first trainer has gained an undeniable advantage."

Ash flipped the video back to their match, "Now watch this one again. Tell me what do you **really** see?"

Ritchie's brows furrowed deeply as his brains exercised harder than they had in ages, "There…. 0.1 seconds before the rocks hit him, he activated **Counter**." He pressed a button that slowed the video down even more, showing them the red beam of light that lanced out from Rattata's body before colliding with Tyrannitar's face, "The attack took 0.03 seconds to hit. There was no order given from you. And even if I had noticed the glow, with only 0.1 seconds between impact and activation, there was no time for me to give an order to dodge." Ritchie muttered quietly.

Ash nodded with a grin, "Correct. Now we move on to the third part of this match up. There was barely enough damage done to activate **Counter**. Even with the type weakness, it wouldn't have been enough to bypass Cruise's armour and deal a fatal hit, so why do you think he still went down?"

"He aimed it at Cruise's open mouth," Ritchie looked up at Ash in awe, "He made sure to take just enough damage to activate **Counter** without crippling his speed too much, sped over to Cruise so that there was no way he could avoid it, and then he released the energy with pinpoint precision. All in less than 0.5 seconds."

Ash grinned gently, "And _that_ is the _Why_."

Ritchie blinked slowly. "Wow."

The raven haired trainer preened, "You may start licking my toes now if you wish."

From behind him, Medicham snorted and Scolipede rolled his compound eyes.

The red haired trainer buried his face in his palms, "What kind of insane place is Reborn if it turned you into someone that can train a **Rattata** of all things, into a monster strong enough to execute crazy moves like that? Was it that bad? Were you like chased day and night into the mountains where you lived like a cannibals forced to scrounge and take advantage of every single opening with maximum impact or something?"

Ash stared at his friend.

"What."

"Well? Were you?"

"Uh, no?"

Ash paused.

"Ok so I did go up into the mountains once or twice… or thirty times…. Possibly more…. mostly because I got lost…." Ash chuckled a little nervously, "but then who **doesn't** eh?"

"So you DID do some sort of crazy intensive training up there!"

"That would depend on what you consider intensive." Ash replied with an awkward grin.

"You mean there weren't all sorts of incredibly strong monsters up there?"

"None that I would really consider abnormally so." The raven haired trainer muttered as he scratched his right cheek.

Ritchie stared at him doubtfully, "So there wasn't any Tyranitars taking chunks out of you and your team and then pushing you down a cliff where you found a secret cave that taught you and your Pokémon advanced battling skills?"

"That sounds like a terrible plotline for a second rate fiction novel."

"No rampaging Aggrons that forced you hide in a cave and scrounge for food day in day out?"

"What have you been smoking and where can I get some?"

"Then why were you going up into those mountains so often and what were you doing there?" Ritchie finally exploded in frustration.

"I got lost." The Pallet town trainer deadpanned before pulling his travelling cloak a little tighter around his left arm with resigned sigh at the other man's disbelieving stare.

"I'm serious. All I really did up there was let them do whatever the heck they wanted. There wasn't a lot of people up there to train with in the first place, so I mostly just let them loose and spent most of my time watching how they lived in the wild… because they knew how to find food better than I did."

"That sounds more like a goddamned vacation than training!"

Ash winced as a memory of him rocking back on forth in a cave, half mad from starvation and dehydration, as he nibbled on his last berry like a chipmunk while his Pokémon basically took turns rolling their eyes at him.

He also vaguely remembered Pikachu, suffering from ketchup withdrawal, sitting in a corner and repeatedly banging his head on a wall after they got lost in the same cave for the twentieth time in a row.

"Something like that." He replied evasively, "Also, Rattata wasn't there with me." The raven haired trainer commented absent-mindedly, "I only found him about two months ago when I first arrived in Sinnoh. I don't really know about the cannibal part either. There was a distinct shortage of people to eat up there."

"Hold up. What did you say?"

"Uh…. There wasn't a lot of people up there to nibble on, so you weren't really correct about the cannibal part?"

Ritchie resisted the massive urge to bang his head on something hard, "No you idiot. Before that!"

"I only had Rattata for about two months since I only met him in Sinnoh?"

"Seriously? Two months?"

"Why? What's wrong with that?"

"I take it back. Your Rattata might be a monster. But you're an even bigger monster than him." Ritchie muttered disbelievingly.

"Oi!" Ash scowled, "Don't call Rattata a monster!"

"That's the part you're worried about!?"

 **(2)**

Ash tilted his head to the side and sighed softly.

"What did you want me to say? That I intentionally went looking for the grittiest, strongest Pokémon with the best potential and then caught that one so that I would be strong as a trainer?" He jabbed one finger at Ritchie, "I might sound a little pretentious but in my book, that's not strong Ritchie. That's called using a crutch."

Ash shook his head with a faint smile as his voice rasped eerily in the suddenly quiet clearing "Whether or not that's how you train them yourself is irrelevant. I don't really think I have the right to tell you what's right or wrong. But I like to believe that Pokémon are more than raw statistics, they're more than what their types indicate, that the circumstances of their birth does not matter. I believe in the strength that each Pokémon holds in them. I believe in the explosive power that each Pokémon has when they combine their abilities with the connection they have with each other and their trainer…. I believe in the flames that burn bright in them even in the darkest depths."

Ash smiled wryly as he stood up slowly and stretched, bones cracking with a satisfying 'crack' after relaxing on the ground for so long, while the travelling cloak covering his left arm flapped softly in the gentle breeze.

"Rattata wasn't really the strongest Pokémon in his forest or anything. In fact, he was probably somewhere below average. He just wanted to be strong enough to live the life he should have had. And that was all the potential I needed to see, that was all the determination I needed him to have. As a friend, and as a trainer, it is simply my duty to help him ignite the fire within him and make it burn even brighter."

Ritchie opened his mouth to retort before closing it with a click, feeling strangely small.

"I see." Ritchie finally said in a subdued tone after a moment of humbled silence, "Can we… can we see the next fight with Teddy?"

"Ted… Ah the Snorlax." Ash nodded as he let the video play at normal speed to the point where the Snorlax made his appearance.

"At this point, Rattata had already taken enough damage that even a glancing hit would knock him out." Ash opined as he pointed at the way the purple rat was bruised and panting on the screen, "It was actually lucky for us that you picked Snorlax, or Teddy as the case may be. Rattata had lost some speed from the first round, but so long as he could enhance it with a partial **Quick attack** , it would be enough to avoid most of Snorlax's attacks. The problem here was taking down your Snorlax before the combo drained his stamina completely." Ash hummed to himself, "The fact that Snorlax was pretty damn bulky didn't really help either. It was a bad matchup no matter how I look at it, and we only won by chance."

"That's what I was thinking." Ritchie admitted, "I was a little more wary of you by then, so I figured it would be a safe bet instead of telling Teddy to just use **Earthquake** instead. Thought we'd finish off Rattata with minimum effort so that we could reserve the bulk of it for whatever you threw out next."

"That would have been bad for us, but for a different reason." Ash agreed with an enthusiastic grin, "A field wide **Earthquake** would have hit even something as nimble as Rattata, so his only way to avoid it would have been to jump, which would just turn him into a slow moving airborne target for Snorlax. And even if we managed to dodge Teddy's follow up, the damage to the field would have rendered his enhanced ground speed all but useless. Same result really. Just different reasons."

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty I guess." Ritchie admitted, "But what I'm really interested in is how Rattata took that opening. We both know that no matter how speedy Rattata was, there was no possible way he could have taken Teddy down without a trick of some sort."

"The **Quick Fang** combo." Ash allowed with a crooked smile, "You were right when you said Rattata doesn't have the power to take down Teddy, and in most situations you'd be right. But you're overlooking something again. Pokémon are still live creatures. Therefore they still operate by the same logic as everything else."

"I… don't see what you're trying to get at." Ritchie admitted sheepishly.

"Call Teddy out. It's easier for me to show you what I mean." Ash suggested enthusiastically.

Doubtfully, Ritchie reached for his Snorlax's poke ball before the colossal Snorlax appeared in flash of white light, landing with a massive thud that threw up a small cloud of dust.

The dark blue and white Pokémon looked around the area curiously while Ash approached him without a hint of fear.

"Amazing." Ash muttered to himself admiringly, "I knew it already, but your Snorlax really is powerful." He grabbed the Snorlax's large mitt and raised it up with a happy hum, "Look at the scars and burns on his paws…"

"Snor!" The large Pokémon yelped in protest and glowered at his trainer while the raven haired Ash happily poked and prodded him.

"Most Snorlax in competitive matches tend to be trained around their bulk and high base strength to maximize their inherent strengths, but yours is pretty unique," Ash muttered to himself absent-mindedly as he molested the Snorlax's legs.

"When I first noticed the muscles on his thighs and the fact that he's leaner than most Snorlax I've seen before, I suspected that you went otherwise and trained him for speed and attacking power. By definition, that makes him a little less bulky comparatively. The scars on his paws confirm my theory as well, it shows how much he has practiced punching. Going by the smell and the burns on his claws, I'd hazard a guess that Teddy here is a pretty good boxer with at least **Fire Punch** and **Ice Punch** available to him. Chances are he also has **Thunder Punch** to round out the trio. Probably surprised quite a few people too I bet since his reduced weight increases his metabolism and makes him less lethargic than most people would expect."

"SNOR!" the Snorlax growled as Ash began pinching his thighs.

"There problem here is that for a Pokémon of this size, he would need exponentially more training and investment than a Pokémon of a smaller build to reach anything that could even be reasonably considered fast, hence the leg muscles. They're strong, no doubt, but Rattata was already faster by default. And he was certainly fast enough to bite Teddy's hamstring repeatedly until your Snorlax went down like a rock. Without the fat covering his weak points such as his joints and hamstring, your Snorlax was defensively weaker than the others of his ilk."

The Snorlax finally had had enough and began to run away from the strange dark haired man that he vaguely remembered meeting just yesterday and wouldn't quit molesting him in strange places.

"COME BACK HERE AND LET ME TOUCH YOU!"

Ritchie pointed at Ash and his loopy, manic smile as he chased the Snorlax around the lake, "Is that…. normal?"

"You mean the randomly touching Pokémon significantly larger and more dangerous than him and then fanboying over them?"

"Yes."

"For people like you and me? Not even remotely." Julia grinned, "Normal for Ash? Hell yes."

"How is he not dead yet?"

"I ask myself that every time I find myself near him." Julia admitted.

The Arcanine on her lap covered his snout with his paws, as if he was embarrassed to be even remotely associated with Ash while Pikachu who was hanging out with Julia after realizing that Ash really did think that playing with a an angry, stomping Snorlax was a _good_ idea, sighed despondently.

Julia pointed at the Snorlax who was now trying to stomp on Ash, only to find it surprisingly difficult to actually land a hit on the happily laughing trainer who apparently thought they were playing a game, "You'd probably be better off summoning your Snorlax back before he kills Ash. You could probably say it was self-defence and get away with it, but I suspect that Titania wouldn't be very pleased with you."

"Titania? The really scary woman who looks like she uses her slightly less scary Aegislash as a teddy bear every time she goes to bed?"

"That's the one."

Yelping to himself, Ritchie quickly tapped the button on Snorlax's Poke ball and retrieved the obviously relieved Snorlax in a flash of red light.

Seeing that his new friend was not around anymore, Ash plodded his way back to Ritchie with a pout, "What was that for? We were having fun."

"The kind of fun that would end with both of us as red splatters on the ground, but yes. Fun." Ritchie commented with a nervous look at the green haired woman grinning at him innocently.

"Don't worry about it." Ash chirped cheerfully, "I've done it so many times now that I've actually gotten pretty good at sewing my guts back into my body.

Ritchie stared at him blankly.

"I am seriously re-considering this whole Reborn thing."

Ash tilted his head, his expression filled with innocent curiosity, "Why so sudden?"

"It suddenly feels like I'd be losing a lot more than I'd gain." Ritchie muttered tonelessly.

"Well…." Ash spread his hands with an awkward grin, "You'd probably an even better trainer than me with some time there."

"I'd also be a nut job."

"Pipipipi!"

Ash glared at his Pikachu who had burst out into laughter again and was rolling around on Arcanine's expansive fur clad tummy.

"Maybe… it's better if we stop the lesson here." Ash remarked almost reluctantly.

"Preferably before Ritchie gets even **more** traumatized from spending time near you." Julia added cheekily.

"Can I at least learn how to do the **Quick Fang** combo tomorrow?" Ritchie asked with a hopeful glint in his dead fish eyes.

Ash pursed his lips thoughtfully, "It's not impossible to learn the concept behind it, but it takes a while."

Ritchie grinned, regaining some of his former vigour, "That's something I guess. So tomorrow at noon?"

Ash nodded with a wan smile as he waved his friend off.

Sighing to himself, the tall man went over to tree where Julia was lounging under and plopped himself next to her.

"I wonder if that was a good idea…" Ash murmured.

"He was set on going anyway." Julia commented, "You just made sure he will at least have a somewhat decent shot at staying alive until you get back."

"You seem awfully certain about that."

"I am." The green haired Gym Leader agreed with a grin, "Remember when we first met?"

"I do my best to forget ever being near you. Period." Ash retorted dryly, "Mostly because being near you usually involves something exploding in a spectacularly dangerous manner. Typically with me inside it."

"You're… still holding a grudge from that huh?"

"Damn right I am."

"But still…"Julia's eyes sparkled as she sighed dreamily, "You can't deny how glorious those flames were when the factory exploded, and that sound…. Mmm….. the way it pierces straight to your heart and shakes your soul up with its smallness…" She licked her lips in such a disturbing manner that Ash wished Ritchie was still here to see it.

His constipated expression would have been priceless.

"It certainly was." Ash agreed with a perfectly straight face, "And considering I was still **inside** it when you decided to blow it up, there were a lot of things being pierced and shaken other than my heart and soul."

"Oops?"

"Arcanine. Can you please bite her?"

The huge orange and white canine lolling on her lap merely cracked open one crimson eye to give him an imperially dignified look as if to say, 'Do it yourself.' before going right back to sleep.

Julia rubbed his wide and furry tummy even harder with a triumphant grin.

"Traitor." Ash muttered under his breath, "Melting like ice cream the moment a pretty woman comes and scratches your tummy. Lucky bast-Traitor."

"But no. I was referring to something else. As the first Gym Leader you fought over there when you arrived, I think I'm probably the one most qualified to tell you how much you've changed." Julia reached over to ruffle Ash's already mess hair affectionately, making it look even more like a bird's nest, "You were such a scrawny kid back then."

"At least that's something." Ash deadpanned dryly.

Julia grinned and looped one arm around his shoulder.

"When I first fought you, you were just like that boy. I could immediately see that both of you had great instincts. Both of you have an amazing empathy for Pokémon, and the corresponding drive to help them. I could see that in you, Ame could see that in you. Hell even Fern could see that or he wouldn't have gone out of his way to talk to you."

"Now you're making me wish I wasn't that _great_." Ash muttered sourly.

Julia chuckled and then smiled soberly, "The foundation was there. Both of you just lack that little something to push you over the edge. I dunno what that something is for him yet, but in your case, you just needed something to help you understand what you were seeing and make use of the conclusions you came to when you observed. You lacked the confidence and courage to take that last step. You've always had people guiding you and caring for you in your journeys, so you've never had a reason to, and I honestly wouldn't say that's a bad thing either."

Julia, the Electric type Gym Leader of Reborn smiled sadly, "You were still pretty young back then, you had plenty of time to naturally develop your own style further. But Reborn sort of accelerated the whole phase in return for something you'll never regain. Something none of us will ever regain."

Ash shrugged uncomfortably, refusing to meet her light green eyes, "It worked out in the end."

"In a way it did I guess." Julia grinned, "Now you're trying to help give him that push he needs without sacrificing too much in the process."

"It's what the Gym Leaders did for me when I was there."

"That we did." Julia thrust out her chest proudly, "We taught you a lot didn't we?"

"All _you_ taught me was that being in the middle of a collapsing factor while it's on fire is a very, very bad idea." Ash deadpanned.

"Ahahahaha…..that's still a lesson right?" the green haired trainer pointedly refused to meet his eyes, "So…. When are your friends and mother arriving?"

The raven haired man rolled his eyes at the painfully obvious attempt to change the topic but let it go without a comment. Squinting at the sun shining through the leafy canopy above them, "In about 3 hours if Misty is right." Ash noted, his fingers fidgeting nervously.

"Don't worry about it." She hugged him tightly, "No matter how much we mess with you, you know that we all love you right? Even Alice no matter how much, or how loud, she denies it."

Ash stared at her.

"If we included you, there have been at least eight Reborn Gym Leaders who have openly tried to kill me. Five of which were supposedly accidents. Not to mention the fact that I **know** there's at least two of you _still_ trying to kill me."

"Titania does look like she desperately needs a good lay." Julia admitted, "She's just cranky about the whole being away from Amalina part."

Ash chuckled reluctantly.

"Come on." Julia rolled Arcanine off her lap, and pulled herself up, "We better get back and get you bathed and ready then. Wouldn't want the Champion's mom thinking we did a bad job of keeping him alive while after all.

Ash regarded her dryly, "You do realize I'm perfectly capable of bathing myself right? I'm not your damned baby brother."

"Physically? Probably not?" Julia grinned teasingly, "Mentally? You're really no better from that idiot."

Rolling his eyes, Ash got up as well.

Packing up their stuff took them a little less than 5 minutes and they were back trekking through the thick forest, cutting through the leaves and foliage with occasional cursing.

"Hey Ash."

"Yeah?"

"Kiki would be proud of you."

Ash smiled thinly as they pushed through the foliage.

Under his rugged cloak, his right fingers closed around a small steel pocket watch.

"I hope so." Her friend rasped.

His green haired friend chuckled as a slight beam of light cut through the thick trees.

"Finally, we're back in civilization. I miss my bed already." She sighed in relief.

Hurriedly, she pushed through the trees only to skid to a stop, right before she could take a long step off a short cliff, into a river of lava, as she stared disbelievingly at a volcano.

An honest to Arceus **volcano**.

She could even see a little Slugma bathing in the lava river in the crevice not even two steps in front of them, the sheer heat emanating from the fiery river washing over her face and sending danger signals down her spine, prompting her to take a very big step back from the edge of the cliff.

"Hmm…" Behind her Ash rubbed his chin absent-mindedly, "I guess we took a wrong turn somewhere."

"A _wrong turn_? No, no, no, no. Taking a left instead of a right is a wrong turn. Ending up in the men's toilet instead of the women's toilet is a wrong turn." She stared at him incredulously and jabbed one finger at the volcano in the distance, " _That_ is _not_ a **wrong turn**."

"Meh."

She whirled around and stared at his Pokémon.

The Blissey, Pikachu, Scolipede, Medicham, Vaporeon, Bronzong and Arcanine stared back at her with the dead fish-like eyes of Pokémon who had seen things no Pokémon were meant to see and were already resigned to a lifetime of getting lost as long as they stayed with Ash.

"Is this normal?"

All of them began to cry miserably.

Pikachu began banging his head on the nearest rock.

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

Corey yawned as the sound of insistent knocking on the door woke him up.

Blearily, the Poison Pokémon specialist reluctantly left the warmth and security of his bed before plodding over to the door, preparing his best death stare for whoever had dared to disturb his sleep.

What he wasn't prepared however, was for a green and yellow blur to burst straight through the door the second he had unlatched it, giving him less than a second to jump back unless he wanted a stubbed toe, bawling her eyes out as she headed straight for Serra who was sitting on the couch and looking remarkably amused as Julia latched onto her and began sobbing incoherently.

Corey took one look at the Gym Leader before he released a shit eating grin.

He knew that reaction well.

Anyone who travelled with Ash did eventually turned out like Julia.

The only difference was the degree of severity.

He glanced at the depressed man still standing in the door way, "Got lost didn't you?"

"Yep."

Corey drew in a deep breath of pure satisfaction and contentment, "Ahh… the smell of suffering in the morning always wakes me up real good."

"And _that_ is why Titania keeps trying to stab you." He croaked dryly.

"She hasn't succeeded yet and she won't any time soon." Corey replied dismissively, "Besides, it's always more fun to see someone else other than myself suffering from being in your presence. They always think I'm exaggerating your habit of getting lost, but now I have managed to open her eyes. One down, 10 to go. Kukuhahahaha!"

"Can you please stop talking as if I'm a walking disaster or something?"

"Do you know anyone else that fucks up as often as you?"

"…. Not really."

"Thank you for making my point for me."

Corey scratched his belly as Ash leaned on the wall next to him.

Both of them watched as Julia retreated to the darkest corner in the room and hugged her knees to her chest as she began to shake violently.

"How many times did you get lost on the way here anyway?" Corey wondered dryly, "Even I didn't react so badly the first time around."

"You wouldn't leave the toilet for three whole days."

"Completely missing the point here, Ash."

"I stopped counting after we somehow popped up under deep Mount Silver." The raven haired man finally admitted after a long and awkward silence.

Corey glanced at his watch, "Huh. No wonder you're so late. It's already 4.15pm, and I **know** the two of you left after your match about 10 in the morning."

The two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they watched Julia rock back and forth, muttering madly to herself.

"Okay, so it's a little amusing." Ash admitted with a wry grin as he idly petted an equally despondent Pikachu between the ears.

Corey grinned, "Well done, young man. You're well on your way to being a cynical monster whose only joy in life is revelling in the suffering of others. Well done indeed. Now if only I can persuade Serra to go with you next…."

"Why not Titania?"

"Do you _like_ getting stabbed?"

"At least you have some compassion in you."

"Not really. I was thinking more along the lines of how much of a pain it would be to drag your crippled and bleeding ass all the way back to Reborn."

"Tsk." Ash grinned widely, "Heather's gonna hate you if you can't be honest y'know."

"Don't you have to get ready for something?" Corey tapped his watch lightly with a haughty expression.

Ash screwed up his face in confusion, "Like?"

"Your mother's ship is supposed to arrive in ten minutes."

The tall man winced before he did an about face and began sprinting for his room.

Corey merely smirked and patiently tapped his foot on the floor when he heard the sound of steel skidding to a stop on linoleum.

It didn't take long before Ash's head popped up from behind the corner sheepishly.

"Where was the harbour again?"

 ******Rippling Eclipse******

"He's late." Misty muttered angrily under her breath as she tapped her daintily heeled feet impatiently on the cobbled stone pier where Delia was supposed to be disembarking from, "This is his mother and he can somehow be late."

"To be fair, he's already 5 years late." Dawn commented wryly, "I'm pretty sure a few more minutes won't make much of a difference."

Misty promptly rounded on her friend, "You were the one that said he'd be okay since he had one of those Gym Leaders keeping an eye on him! That's why I thought it would be okay!"

Dawn nervously took a step back. It was a never wise thing to be anywhere near Misty when she was doing one of her meltdown solo acts, "Calm down, Misty. Even if he doesn't look it, I'm sure he wouldn't miss this."

"I hope so." Misty tapped her foot irritably, "Where is your adopted sister anyway?"

"Cynthia?" Dawn tilted her head, "She's at the airport I think. The Sinnoh Gym Leaders and Elite Four are arriving today, so she went to meet them."

"You think?"

Dawn brushed back a stray lock of lustrous blue hair and shrugged, "I dunno what time they're supposed to arrive and I didn't bother to ask. They might even be in town and having lunch or something right now."

She briefly glanced aside at her friend and gave an exasperated sigh, "Seriously Misty, It'll fine. Ash will be here for sure."

"Yoo!"

Both of them whirled around at the sound of a gravelly voice and steel unevenly clinking on cobblestone.

A tall frame lightly jogged towards them with at a steady pace, a slight limp in his step. A plain and serviceable travelling cloak he had insisted on buying was thrown over his left shoulder, concealing much of his frame and backpack, but what they could see was a form fitting, short sleeved black shirt finished off with a pair of dark blue jeans and two plain but sturdy steel toed boots while a small yellow rat attached to the back of his head waved at them as well.

"Well, well. Speak of the devil." Dawn chuckled.

The heat waves around him didn't seem to affect him at all despite the fact that he was jogging and wearing a thick dark cloak in public for some idiotic reason but by the time he was within hailing distance, all of them could see that the beads of sweat lining his temples.

"Hey." Ash smiled with relief as he glanced around the harbour, fidgeting slightly as his right thumb repeatedly brushing over a silver pocket watch, "At least I wasn't late."

"We've already been here for 15 minutes." Misty pointed out impatiently.

"The fact that you were early doesn't mean that I was late." Ash pointed out.

Misty's lips quirked upwards as she tapped her watch that showed displayed the numbers "4:35" in bright neon green digital type.

"But we promised we'd meet here at 4.15 sharp, so by definition you are late."

"Not really. I promised that I would meet her at the harbour. I said nothing about coming with you." Ash replied with a familiar crooked grin as he shaded his eyes to squint up at the sky, "Besides, I was pretty sure they were going to be late by 30 minutes anyway."

The orange haired woman, dressed in a form fitting white dress that displayed the lines of her body merely quirked one brow, "And you knew that because?"

Ash shrugged and gestured at their right where Kanto lay behind the horizon, "There was a strong west wind blowing this morning. It smelt like a thunderstorm."

Misty's lips thinned but she refrained from saying anything as Ash turned towards Dawn with a grin.

She didn't really know what she had expected.

For five years, she had thought when Ash came back, everything would go back to the way it was. He'd still be that dense, single minded idiot that always gave his best. She knew that wasn't possible of course. They had all changed, her included. There was no way Ash would remain the same as he was 5 years ago. But this Ash…

This Ash… was just as dense, just as single minded, just as focused on Pokémon. To a point, it was pretty reassuring, but there was something… _off_ about the way he smiled and acted, and it niggled at the back of her mind.

As she stared unseeingly into the distance while Ash and Dawn seemed to be talking about some inconsequential battle, Misty sighed softly.

She wanted her best friend back.

"They're here." Ash suddenly said to no one in particular.

Misty blinked. Brushing back the soft orange fringes that fell across her eyes and squinted at the small shape that had just appeared over the horizon.

Beside her, Ash Ketchum began bouncing on the balls of his feet with an obvious grin on his face as nervous energy practically poured out from his very being. His eyes tracked every swell and swirl of the waves until the ship finally anchored and shouts could be heard from the cruiser, the voices of people hustling and bustling as they unloaded their passengers and cargo.

"Oh my, I'm glad that I wasn't late."

Ash absent mindedly waved at the woman whose hair that reached all the way down her back, impossibly shimmering with all the hues of the rainbow, as she joined their group.

"Glad to see you could make it Serra."

The beautiful model-like woman smiled gently as Ash grinned at her, "I was held up by Julia."

The aforementioned trainer refused to meet her pointed look as he coughed nervously, "Look, their starting to disembark!"

As Ash began moving towards the cruiser, Misty's eyes glanced at her watch and she stopped short.

5.00pm.

The ship had been scheduled to arrive at 4.30pm.

Ocean blue eyes shot up incredulously.

The four of them halted just underneath the shadow of the ship's hull when they heard a high pitched voice floating down from the bridge.

"Neh. C'mon missy. I just want your number. You should be honoured that I'm asking you know."

"And I'd like to see you wandering in the desert without a map. It's too bad we can't have everything we want no? Now get lost creep!"

Almost at the same time, Ash let out a resigned chuckle.

"Oh, my." Serra laughed into her hands with a fufufu sound, "That's a familiar voice isn't it?"

"Who's that?" Dawn asked curiously.

"A mutual acquaintance from Reborn." Ash deadpanned, "Now if you'll excuse me for a moment…"

Their little group watched as the tall, raven haired trainer bent down and retrieved the biggest rock he could find.

It was the size of his palm, rounded nicely and a fairly normal rock for all intents and purposes.

The four women watched as Ash patiently bounced the rock up and down in his palm, apparently waiting for the speaker to appear.

When a head of grass green hair popped up, harassing a girl with a red bandanna tied around her brown hair, Ash let out another resigned sigh before striding towards them.

The girl who was fighting with the green haired boy seemed to notice him approaching from behind, her mouth dropping open incredulously as she instantly recognized her old friend.

Or at least an older version of him anyway.

An older, significantly more rugged and serious looking version.

Said old friend then tapped the annoying pervert who had been bothering her the entire boat ride on the shoulder with a polite smile.

The boy turned around and his mouth had barely opened when there was a loud crack.

May stared in absolute shock as the person that resembled her friend so much essentially brained the annoying sex deprived idiot with a rock the moment he turned around. Behind her, there was a quiet gasp as Delia, Gary, Brock, Iris, Cilan and even Professor Oak could only stare with complete and utter shock.

"It's great to see you again, May." Ash grinned apologetically as he knelt down and pulled a length of rope and a black sack out of… somewhere, "I'd give you a hug, but I kinda need a moment to deal with this."

The brown haired girl stared mutely as the older trainer quickly and rapidly wrapped the sack around the unconscious green haired man's head, tied it with the rope, and then unceremoniously rolled the body back onto the ship with a loud thud.

The captain eyed Ash with one blood shot eye as the lump of flesh rolled to a stop by his peg leg, "What's that for? I don't want no corpse on mah sheep."

"Shee… Oh." Ash shrugged, "It's not a corpse. He's alive."

"Don't really matter. I don't want him on mah sheep one second longer." The crusty old sailor shivered unconsciously, "Bloody bastard wuldn't stahp talking for a minute. Even asleep he was telling everyone how great he was."

The corpse at his feet made a moaning sound that was abruptly cut short by a sharp thud.

"Sounds like the Fern we all know and love." Ash agreed pleasantly as if he had not just as he had not just stomped on the boy's face.

He stomped on Fern's nose again.

Just because he could.

The Pallet Town trainer dug around in his pocket for some of the winnings he had collected over the past day. Handing the captain a nice lump sum, Ash smiled pleasantly, "Just dump him on a beach somewhere about a day's journey from here. You don't even have to stop. Just throw him overboard when you get near enough."

The old man eyed him suspiciously, "And what do ah do if he wakes up and starts ashking questions?"

"Feel free to brain him again if he starts waking up." Ash replied with a pleasant smile as he dropped the blood stained rock into the captain's rugged hand.

Misty nudged Serra gently.

"Hmmm?"

"How is he not in jail yet?" Misty whispered urgently.

"He? Ash or Fern?"

"Fe- oh that guy. And I meant both of them."

"Throwing Fern in jail means someone will have to guard him. We couldn't find anyone dumb enough to do it." Serra shrugged with a sheepish expression. "Besides, we leave him around because he's pretty harmless. The fact that he tends to follow Ash around means that we at least know that Ash will be close enough to stop him from doing anything **too** stupid."

"By introducing his face to a rock?"

"It works doesn't it? Not that it seems to bother Fern at all if the way he keeps trying to follow Ash is any indication." Serra remarked with a grin, "Besides, I know for a fact Ash doesn't really mind. He seems to think that finding more and more creative ways to shut Fern up is a rather cathartic exercise."

The former model tapped her luscious lower lips with one meticulously manicured finger thoughtfully, "That said, a rock to the face is rather uninspiring isn't it? I guess he's just not in the mood. Oh well."

Misty and Dawn slowly edged away from the Icy Gym Leader and the creepy killer smile tainting her beautiful lips.

Back with Ash, the captain glared at the wad of paper before shrugging, "No skin of mah shulders if he's ahlive then. But if someone comes ashking, I'm pointing them in yous direction." He muttered grumpily, giving the limp body one last kick with his peg leg.

"Gladly." Ash happily waved as the ship slowly began to sail away with its rather unpleasant passenger.

He turned around to face his old friends and family before grinning, "First, don't worry. Fern's skull is as thick as a Bastiodon so all a rock to the face will do is give him a minor concussion that he'll sleep off in a day or two before he's back and as annoying as ever. Secondly…" He strode over until he was in front of his mother, their difference in height was as stark as it was 5 years ago. Only in reverse.

Ash bent down slightly and engulfed his mother in a tight one armed hug.

"Hey, mom." Ash said with a crooked smile.

"I'm back."

Delia bit down hard on her trembling lower lip, her eyes darting between the man standing before her and the ship sailing away, as if she couldn't quite decide whether she wanted to welcome him home first or tell him that attempting to commit murder in broad daylight is a very bad idea.

No one blamed her.

Ultimately, the urge to hug her son back seemed to win over the usually sensible woman and Delia Ketchum collapsed into Ash's one armed hug as a silent sob wracked her significantly smaller frame.

As she clung to him, the reality that her son was really home finally seemed to sink in and then the tears really began to flow.

Her son really was home. Even if he was so much taller and heftier, even if he now had a litany of scars all around his one visible arm, even his voice seemed to be so much more croaky, even if his usual crooked smile now looked more like a smirk rather than a smile, even if he seemed to limp every other step, all Delia cared about was the fact that her son was back.

For his part, Ash's grin almost seemed to split his face in half as Pikachu jumped down from his perch and joined the hug by attaching himself to Delia's face, fat drops of tears splashing out.

Delia cried even harder as she tried to hug both him and Pikachu at the same time.

He buried his face and his mother's hair and drew a deep breath. He had never quite realized how much he had missed his mother's scent, a mix of clean soap, freshly baked bread and lavender.

Misty covered her mouth with her hands, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

When Delia finally let go, Ash grinned and headed towards Professor Oak, Delia still at his side.

He took Professor's Oak's hand with a firm shake and a crooked smile.

The older man glanced between the grinning man before him and the ship drifting away.

"That… was an interesting way to make a reintroduction." Oak finally commented noncommittally.

"You were one step short of throwing him overboard yourself, grandfather." Gary Oak pointed out with a dry grin as he stepped forward and offered a hand to his old rival, "Ash just saved you the trouble." Turning to Ash, he smirked.

"Ash Ketchum. Nice to see you in one piece."

"Gary." Ash rasped stoically before breaking out into a wry grin of his own, "Still the same infuriatingly condescending jackass I see."

"Meh. I only do it to piss you off."

"This coming from the guy who legitimately thought renting a car, a driver and an entire cheering block with his parents' inheritance was a perfectly good idea."

Gary winced.

If the ever needed proof that the man standing in front of him and his old friend wasn't quite the same person any more, that dry, clinically sarcastic tone of someone who had no fucks left to give was probably it.

Ash turned to the last five members of his mother's entourage.

Their eyes were almost watering as they watched him, disbelief, relief and desire-to-punch-him-silly-and-then-hug-him-until-he-died-of-a-busted-lung mixed and played across their expressions.

"Brock… Cilan… May… Max… Iri-" Ash cut himself off as he stared blankly at her dress.

Her frilly, fluttery, dress complete with angelically flowing scarf attached.

He pursed his lips.

"Whoever's helping you pick your dresses needs some help. Desperately."

The shorter girl went completely red, " **5 years…. 5 years** and **THAT'S** the first thing you say to me after reappearing out of nowhere?!"

Ash grinned so hard his lips almost cramped up as he dodged Iris' flying fists and swooped her up with one arm into a tight hug, "Thank you Iris," He looped the arm around Max and May as well, "Thanks for worrying about me. Thanks for taking care of my mum. Thank you… all of you. For everything." He whispered fiercely.

Hiccupping quietly, May smiled and pecked his cheek while Max seemed to be frozen in place. Iris resolutely refused to look at him, though he wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want him to see her crying or if she was being shy.

He turned to the last two.

"You don't mind if I pass on the hug right?" Brock replied with a wide smile, eyes crinkled up into a thin line.

"I'm with him." Cilan agreed with a whimsical smile that wavered and trembled every few seconds, "Wouldn't say no to a manly handshake though."

Ash grinned widely, "Shut up and come here."

Laughing, all three men piled onto each other and slapped each other's backs the way men always did when they were too embarrassed to cry openly and honest say what they really thought.

"C'mon, lunch is on me!" Ash enthusiastically declared.

"Ash." Delia interrupted him calmly, "Don't you think you should introduce that lady you were waiting with Misty and Dawn first? Your manners are more important than your stomach."

Serra smirked, she liked Delia already.

She bowed gracefully, brushing her glimmering hair back with a motherly smile, "It's good to meet you, Mrs. Ketchum. I've heard plenty about you."

Ash smiled thinly, "This is Serra. She's a Gym Leader from Reborn and I owe her a lot for taking care of me while I was there."

"Re…born?"

Gary frowned, "Isn't that the new place that just joined the Coalition?"

Serra nodded with a sweet smile that struck the hearts of every male within a 10 meter radius as she stood on tip toe and ruffled the tall man's raven hair affectionately, "I'm here on a diplomatic journey with one of our Elite Four. Ash just happened to be around, and since he's been here before, we thought he'd be able to show us the sights."

Ash who had been glancing at her a little nervously practically beamed as he nodded along furiously.

Behind Delia, Serra showed him a fist with one finger held up and mouthed, ' _You owe me_.' Together with a sultry wink.

"How did you even get there Ash?" Professor Oak asked curiously, "As far as I know, there was no way for people to even go there without special permission until a couple of months ago."

"I got on the wrong ship. Fell asleep under a bag of beans that I thought was a bed." Ash deadpanned, "Didn't wake up until I got there because no one noticed a snoring kid under some beans."

"Ah…." Professor Oak smiled wryly as he thought back to all those years ago when Ash went missing for entire months trekking through Kanto, "Sounds about right."

"I'm not sure if I'm hurt or amused by the fact that you don't deny that at all" Ash said cheerfully, "But I'm sure none of you want to stand in the heat any longer. We have a hotel room in the city, so we can talk about my little misadventure there yes?"

Shrugging on his mother's luggage with inordinate ease, a widely grinning Ash fell into step next to his mother.

"So I heard you've joined the Tournament?"

Ash blinked and looked down at a pair of glasses shining up at him.

"Pretty much. Figured I might as well do something while I waited for you guys to arrive."

Max blinked owlishly, "So you don't intend to win?"

"It would be nice, but it's not my end goal." Ash gave the younger boy an easy going smile and ruffled his hair, "You here to watch the Tournament too?"

"I'm joining actually."

This time it was Ash's turn to blink owlishly, "But… the registration is over?"

Brock chuckled quietly to himself. Same old day dreamer. Despite looking a lot mature than he had expected, it was nice to see that some things hadn't changed at all.

"That's cause the brat's in the first seed."

"Seed….?" Ash stared at May blankly, "Like… Bullet seed kinda seed?"

May giggled, "It means that Max was given a good estimate, so he gets a free pass through some of the earlier matches because if the organisers tried to make everyone who wanted to participate fight every single match, it would take a lot longer than it already is. Now, all he has to do is win 2 matches and he'll qualify for the Tournament."

Ash squawked indignantly, "I did one yesterday and 2 more today, why the difference?"

"Possibly because you're not seeded at all." Professor Oak commented, "If you had a good track record of recent battles in any of the Coalition's regions, they'd probably give you the same rating. As it is, you are essentially a blank piece of paper to the organisers, so they lumped you in with the rest."

Ash blinked, "Oh. So the one I have this evening is the semi-finals?"

"You didn't know?" Dawn blurted out incredulously.

"I wasn't really keeping count." The tall man admitted, his arm still around his mother's shoulder, "Was enjoying the match too much to bother."

"Glad to see some things haven't changed that much." Delia remarked wryly.

"So there's a chance I can battle you tomorrow?" Ash said to Max with a hopeful look in his eyes, "I seriously can't wait to see how much you've grown."

"Nooope." Dawn cut in, grinning a little at Ash's downcast puppy dog expression, "There are four blocks in total. You're in Block D. Max is in Block A. The only way you'll get to fight him is if both of you win all your qualifier matches and meet each other in the Tournament itself."

"Huhuhu…" Ash rasped as he rubbed his hands delightedly, "All the more reason to win today I guess. Might even have to change my line-up a little."

Misty hummed to herself, "Normal Tournament matches rules say that you're allowed to switch in between matches. However, once you have selected your 6 Pokémon, you are not allowed to change them during the match itself. That said, I haven't seen you use a full six yet."

Max's eyes went wide, "He hasn't used a full six?"

"Nope." Dawn snorted, "Forget six. He hasn't even used _three_. The only Pokémon we've seen him use so far is Pikachu and Rattata."

"A Rattata." Max echoed blankly, "A **Rattata**. In a _Tournament level_ league?"

"Don't look down on the little guy." Dawn noted wryly, "Ash's Rattata singlehandedly took down an entire team this morning and wasn't even winded. His opponent wasn't playing around either after everyone saw that Rattata take down a Tyranitar yesterday in less than 2 seconds."

"A **Tyranitar**? In less than 2 seconds" Max blurted out dumbly, directing a gaze filled with awe at his old mentor.

Ash chuckled with some embarrassment as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "I didn't really have anything to do with it. Rattata was the one doing all the fighting."

"Sure you didn't." Dawn muttered under her breath, "I'm sure that Rattata learned how to run circles around everybody by itself."

"Are you going to use that Rattata later?" Max asked enthusiastically while the rest listened in curiously.

"Probably." Ash shrugged, "I haven't had a reason to change my set. It's still the same six since I started the Tournament. Only three of them are from Reborn though."

Brock's eyes started shining, "Really? Who are they? Did you get some super strong Pokémon from Reborn? Does the food there make them stronger?"

"They're strong, but I don't know about "super" strong." Ash noted with a chuckle, "I'm pretty confident in them though."

"Speaking of which," Gary suddenly interjected, "I have something, or someone for you, Ash."

Giving his old friend a perplexed look, Ash tilted his head, "What do you mean?"

Gary casually threw a Poke ball at Ash with a smirk, "It's one of yours. Been helping you look after him."

"You really should come back to Pallet after the Tournament though." Professor Oak added calmly, "All your Pokémon miss you terribly. They're alright of course," He assured Ash after seeing that the trainer looked terribly guilty, "But they miss you."

"I'll go there immediately after I finish the Tournament." Ash promised as he opened the poke ball.

A sleek, dark bluish grey, shark like snout looked around curiously once the white flash had faded away,

"A Gabite?" Ash murmured dubiously before realization dawned, "Gible?"

"Garr!" The Gabite stared at him for a long moment before lunging at the startled Ash.

The raven haired trainer yelped as the Gabite's clamped down on his face as tenderly as a 5 foot tall land shark with extremely sharp fangs could.

"GAAAAH!"

"GARRR!"

Which is to say not at all.

After a few moments of panic and pulling, the group finally separated Ash's face from the Gabite's mouth. Tenderly touching the bite marks on his cheek, the dark haired trainer chuckled wryly, "Yup it's Gible alright." He rubbed the Gabite's head affectionately, making sure to keep his digits away from those sharp fangs as Pikachu leapt onto Gabite's shoulder, sniffing the Gabite curiously before the two old friends started chirping and talking to each other excitedly.

"I wonder how much the others have changed." He murmured with a tight smile tinged with a slight sadness as Delia held his arm a little tighter.

"Just one or two of them." Professor Oak noted with a sympathetic smile, "The rest refused to level or evolve without you around."

Ash nodded silently, his throat seemed to stop working, as they finally reached Silver town.

As they reached the hotel in a companionable silence, Ash stood by at the back of the group and silently watched his friends checked in one by one when he frowned.

"Wouldn't it make more sense for May to just bunk with Misty and Dawn?" Ash asked curiously, seeing that Brock had requested a twin bed room, probably for him and Max while May had apparently asked for an extra-large one with three beds for herself.

"Ahh… there were some change in plans." Brock explained with a smile, "Some of our members didn't make it from Kalos in time, so they'll be arriving tomorrow. In the meantime, May's going to be staying with Max until Max's friend from Kalos arrives."

Ash tilted his head, "Oh. Then what bout you? Why not just stay with Gary and Professor Oak and save the rent for a room?"

"I'm going to stay with my fiancé. She's coming with Max's friend."

"What."

Brock looked up and cleared his throat with shit eating grin that told everyone there he had been waiting to hear that exact question from Ash for the past three years.

"I'm. Going. To. Be. Staying. With. My. Fiancé."

The group watched Ash very calmly dig around his ears before slapping himself.

"What."

"I'm. Getting. Married."

Pikachu fell off Ash's shoulder in a dead faint.

Ash glanced at Pikachu for a long moment before nodding decisively, "That looks like a **really** good idea."

He proceeded to pass out as well.

Brock pursed his lips.

"I…. feel kinda insulted that he's more surprised about me getting married than everything else."

Cilan patted his back sympathetically, "Don't worry bout it man."

"Thanks Cilan."

"I fainted too."

"Fuck off."

 ******Rippling Eclipse*****


End file.
